The Taylor Garage

I’ve been working out the details of this week’s design – a keepsake box – for a bit of time now.  I got inspired to start this box upon seeing Scott Meeks’s shaped box with splined/keyed mitered corners.  That inspiration led to this box, with multiple splines per corner:

I first started with the idea of multiple splines that got shorter from top to bottom. In most cases, having the largest piece on top will make a design feel too top-heavy and imbalanced, but the trapezoidal sides help relieve that tension and weight. I think the square base piece anchors the box firmly. I prefer the base being square (as drawn above), but I might experiment with chamfers and bevels for the base if I actually build the box.

I’m undecided on how the top would fit with the box, so I came up with the five options on the right. If I had to rank them, I’d probably go 4, 1, 2, 5, 3 – but I would love to hear other people’s opinions on the top.  I gave the box top a simple handle that could easily be cut at the band saw or with a router.  I could also see using the same handle top as I used for the domino box I made last Christmas.

When you walk into your run-of-the-mill furniture store these days, you tend to see a lot of squares in the pieces. There are some round end table, a few oval coffee tables, and the rare bombe dresser.  What you don’t tend to see are irregular shapes or live edges.  However, those attributes can be found in plenty in the custom furniture market and in smaller studios.

If you browse through the woodworking blogosphere, you can find plenty of folks making beautiful pieces with live slabs. A couple of great examples:

Dan Mosheim of Dorset Custom Furniture:

Dale Osowski of Timberwerks Studio:

Both are exceptional pieces from highly talented craftsmen, but they lead me to one question:  Why just hall tables and benches? About 99% of the live edge/irregular pieces I’ve seen are either hall tables or sitting benches. Don’t get me wrong, I love these pieces, but why haven’t live slabs become popular as cabinet/dresser tops, low entertainment centers, or desks? You see the occassional coffee table or countertop, but these gorgeous slabs don’t seem to travel much farther than that.

So my question for the reader is “Why? Why don’t we see more slabs?”

This week’s furniture design is an adaptation of a previous piece I’ve built. Actually, it’s more the true realization of the first bookcase I built. A simple design, but the delight is in the details:

The original bookcase I built were done strictly out of plywood, thus why it got the whitewash treatment.  I would still use plywood for the shelves and the interior of the sides (maple, probably), but all the trim would be in a darker wood (likely walnut). 

I don’t have the shelf spacing drawn correctly.  The third shelf from the bottom should be at half the height of the total piece, so the trim divider on the sides would also be half way up. The other thing I couldn’t properly represent is the trim on the sides. The intent is that the dark trim would be proud of the maple side. It would also be coved/hollowed out on the inner edges, smoothing flush with maple side.

When I built the first bookshelf, I really liked how the latticed backing turned out on the piece. I think going horizontal/vertical two-toned here steps it up an notch. The added depth of the trim on the sides should also spice up the piece.

A question for the readers out there: how much attention should I pay to the back of the piece? Looking at the drawing, the trim looks incomplete without it boxing in that back edge, but no one will likely ever see that.  Also, do I need to trim the rear of the shelves or can I leave the plywood edge exposed, considering it would most likely never be seen?

Five weeks in and I’m only one week behind.  At this rate, I’ll be caught up and finished by late March – 2011. Not bad for a one year commitment! On to this week’s idea…

This week I come before you to present a coffee table:

The table is mostly two-toned, with the same wood used for the inner square and the trim. The inner square is lined by a herringbone inlay, which is composed of neither of the two woods found elsewhere on the table. The legs and crossbars also mimic the two-toned style, although I haven’t decided which part I want light or dark. The lighter trim is bullnosed to reduce possible sharp edges on the sides (it’s amazing what details you think of when you have a mobile child exploring the house).

I first drew this up with the center circle as just plain wood, but the more I think about it, the more I want to put some type of inlayed design in that center area.  I’ve included one possible design (bottom, right) composed of spiraling concentric squares of alternating woods.

The biggest thing I like about this design is that I had a bit of an epiphany when drawing the 3D model of it. I have realized why my perspective drawings are so top heavy (and knowing is half the battle), but I’m not sure how to work through changing that.  I also figured out how to calculate ceratin angles after I’ve draw the reference line with the skewed perspective. I even had to break out the happy dance after these realizations!

I have a couple of other designs that I’ve started flushing out, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch up over this weekend and get back on track. To see what others are designing around the web, make sure to check out the Furniture Design blog.

..or at least its a sleepable crib.

After far too much time spent cutting, gluing, remaking some parts, gluing, and shellacking – Briana now has a crib in which she can sleep. I still have to put the hinges on the cabinet door and make the drawers for underneath, but those can go in after she gets to start using it.  And she has: