How do you like my utensil rack.An old garden rake makes a great place to hang your equipment or pot holders. 
I built these lamp holders out of scrap fencing and inserted those little solar garden stakes. They dont give a lot of light, but they do light your pathchoice and provide a nice ambiance. 
Just another view of our solar lights. 
My crafty wife surprised me with this menu board. She used chalkboard paint and built it from scrap fencing and a scrap of plywood. We enjoy using it when we throw a dinner party. We have a family motto,"Never throw out scrap lumber",You would be surprised at all the things we have built with wood from our scrap bin. Have a wonderful day!Keep improving your home and making it you,and please leave a comment.Steve
Its not a Pink Floyd project, but it is a wall for sure ... about 18 long and 8 high ... A couple little pieces and a touch up on the paint were all set ... This ones been going on for a while and at the end of the day yesterday, the shop seemed quite a bit bigger than it has for the past couple of weeks .... Ron and Jackie and Buddy (see the previous post) were on hand to pass out the beer at the end of the day ... Weve been working with them off and on since 1983 ... Well go back in and finish it up today .... It was a total room transformer ... Click the photos to enlarge them ....
This was a discussion drawing that shows the basic elements but not all the details. Some of the proportions and measurements changed after we got to this point, but rather than spend more time drawing went from here to full size layout sticks that we made on site. We have done all these elements in other pieces before so everyone is already familiar with the basics and detailed drawings werent necessary.
Taking shape in the shop ...
We managed to set it up temporarily in the shop to check everything and cut the crown molding in the shop .... If youre not a carpenter, on site crown work is a total pain .... 
We had to rent a 14 U-Hual, which was an 
Getting close ... Will and Jim attach the last piece of the shelves ...
Since the fireplace is 99% decorative, I made a few sketches for a fireplace screen that Sam will construct later .... Beutiful day ... Lake Paran Bluegrass Festival starts tonight and Wills band will be closing the show ... Set up for yet another Guild furniture show tomorrow ...
The power of paint .... heres a before shot early in the design process ...
in a recent post, i wrote about refinishing a table i built 21 years ago in a style i am still working in today, and in fact, started working on in 1986. ill give jasper johns some credit for that as i often use his quote in the title above when talking about a design language. my introduction to my style was by complete accident in 1986. a client/friend who had been living in germany for a few years described this desk she wanted me to build for her based on some furniture she had been living with during those years abroad. i kind got what she was describing and made her desk, as she described it to me. click the photos to enlarge them ...
there it is, in the upper right hand corner, mahogany and black paint with brass hardware. my wife and i both liked the style and since our house at the time was more or less devoid of nice furniture, i decided i would participate in a show at a local gallery and whatever didnt sell (hah !), we would bring home for the dining room. well, we know how that goes, and i have had this lovely furniture in my own home for 25 years now. this was before the internet and before my book collection had grown to include anything regarding the biedermeier style. the desk above we liked, but was too formal for us so we used native natural cherry with the black paint instead of the stained mahogany. presto ... studio style ....
thats our table and chairs in the upper left corner above and our sideboard in the top left corner of the top photo. so, what am i trying to say here?. this is a post i have been trying to write for a while about, really, how did i get here? we actually did two custom studio style dining rooms last year, this one, and this one so on we go with it ...
so, here we are ... take an object, or a design, or a combination of woods or colors and try to imagine how they could be different, or similar but different; change a little here; change a little there; change a lot, but keep some stuff; keep at it; keep reading and looking; keep an open mind and keep changing ... when you look back 30 some years later youll indeed wonder how did i get here? , but youll be pleased that your designs hang together from the same thread or threads that run through all of it ...
you can add some inlays ... here we have a studio style half round with abalone inlays, which led to some bed headboards with abalone inlays, and we know where that went, which was on to one of our most involved and challenging pieces. more on the wood and metal style in a future post.
wood and steel tables ... the bethlehem steel series.
winters over here as of today ... bluebirds are back in the yard, buzzards are back, ducks are back, 70 degrees today, the convertible top was down, fire in the sky, and its only the middle of march. what next tomorrow? hummingbirds? golf? maybe on the golf, another month at least until hummingbirds ... peace ...
great sunset on peters peak
all in, all done ... i had to take pictures of this one three different times before i finally got it right, but it was worth it ... this is a really wide piece of walnut and its kind of unlikely ill get one like it again. click the photos to enlarge them ...
you can see a little more of the base here ...
and in this shot, some of the natural defects (ant trails) that we left in the finished piece ...
and heres the photo from my supplier, good hope hardwoods, that i sent to the potential client to seal the deal.
and here is sams fabricating/welding jig that he used when building the trapezoidal shapes for the base verticals ... those he connected with 2.5" angle iron which gave us a rigid, independent base structure which we will remove for shipping ...
this table top had some miles on it before we finished, and it was no picnic to move it .. it started in california somewhere, went to pennsylvania, to dorset and the woodshed at my house, moved to the garage, from there to the shop for final smoothing and sanding, and then to the finish room on a special cart we built to get it out the door .. going down the 2 high 8 long ramp from the front steps of the shop was thrilling.
across the drivechoice was a piece of cake comparatively ... jim is actually on tiptoes here ...
and here you can see the cart and the more relaxing ramp into the finish room ...
where it went through its usual paces ... off to aspen this week, or maybe el paso first.
he started with this cad drawing i made from my memory of a compass rose we did in a sea chest lid about 15 years ago. that was a small inlay, and i cant find a picture, but i remember the layout. we then made a quick 1/4 inch mdf sample of half the circle, which gave us patterns for the blanks. 
3/6/2012 ... thanks to my website designers, my site is back up! severals readers offered their input on the problem, and i thank them for that. from reading their suggestions and some of the links that they sent, i realized that the problem was a server update problem, the solution to which was kind of technical, and without doing this every day, not easy to comprehend. back in business now ... if i can just get some of our new stuff up there, ill be all set ... soon ...
ok now ... will says we have inherited this problem due to a a server update at one and one ... havent a clue ... any of you coders out there care to comment? thanks ..
