Cool furniture, design objects and desiderata

[Darkside]

Considering that most mass market retailers (Pottery Barn) charge about $100 per pillow, $250+ to get exactly what you want in a high end fabric seems somewhat reasonable.

On another note, anyone have built-in minibar inspo? No water hookup but I have about an 80” nook behind a dining table I may want to fill with a custom built in.

Also looking for wooden king size bed recs that have room for storage underneath. At this point I might just buy another Thuma bed. With the new wooden headboard, it checks all the boxes.

 

[Bromley]

Dovetail orientation, spacing, and pitch on Foo's credenza make sense structurally, and because they make sense structurally, they also make sense aesthetically.

Stress on casework tends to be ↕️ so you want the tails on the sides of the case because they contain the angle that resists ↕️ strain. Tighter spacing toward the front/back of the case helps resist cupping. The dovetail pitch is traditionally based on the hardness/softness of the wood. General rule of thumb: 1:6 pitch for soft woods, 1:8 pitch for hard woods. Teak is hard, so a steeper pitch is appropriate.

Most of us don't load our wooden boxes onto ships and stagecoaches to cross to cross the stormy seas and bumpy prairies anymore, and so the demands on casework joinery are less intense than they used to be. Most of these choices are aesthetic these days, but it's important to know what's going on when you're making stuff.

 

[TheFoo]

 

[kindofyoung]

I can barely believe I managed to get this done before school was over but my latest creation, the chest of drawers (bureau?) Minus, is completed and worked out more or less as I had hoped. I'll be applying with it to a few different exhibitions, so here's the translated version of a text I've already written for it to cover most aspects of the idea and creation:

If everything but the most important of a drawer is stripped away, what's left?

No top surface to clutter, no panels to hide the inner workings, no legs that steal floor space.

In their place a simple frame, enclosing the absence of what once was.

Left floating mid-air only simple boxes remain, asking the question: What am I?

Failed experiments are atleast as educational as successful ones. In my case a scrapped design led to wanting to create a piece of storage furniture utilizing internally placed suspension of drawers rather than the classic external kind, not just for function but for aestethics sake.

The advantage of an internal mounting design is primarily the fact that if rails/grooves are placed on the inside rather than outside, there's no longer a need for an external frame to keep the box in place.

Continuing on this thought of subtraction and to some degree deconstruction, a concept took shape applying this same principle to both individual components and the piece as a whole. How much can you strip away from the classic aestethics of a piece of furniture without losing its essence, and how far can you go if the goal IS to shake up that essence?

The result is my deconstructed and seemingly "impossible" chest of drawers: Minus. The proportions of the piece paired with spacers and common hardware store components, enable a suspension invisible from most angles, giving the apperance (especially in person) that the boxes are levitating in the air.

The boxes are made up of blockboards I've made myself, with a gluejointed core and veneers on both sides for dimensional stability. The blockboards, the frame and the rest of the wooden components are all made of birch and treated with hardwax oil. The wood combines with a 4mm steelsheet that has been watercut and recessed into the back of the frame, carrying both the whole construction and the illusion.

Unfortunately it's very hard to capture the levitating/floating aspect digitally, but if you enjoyed the pictures above there's a whole bunch more spoilered below, as well as a short ~40second video I took of the cabinet outside. I hope you've enjoyed reading this and that you'll like my creation

Spoiler: More pics and short video

Imgur video

 

[sugarbutch]

 

[whorishconsumer]

So I received this in the mail from a family member yesterday. It belonged to a family friend who recently passed. Supposedly dated to the 30s.

 

[Jr Mouse]

So I received this in the mail from a family member yesterday. It belonged to a family friend who recently passed. Supposedly dated to the 30s.

View attachment 1978753

Love this. Never part with it but if you do decide to reach out to me.

 

[whorishconsumer]

Love this. Never part with it but if you do decide to reach out to me.

Name checks out.

 

[Jr Mouse]

Name checks out.

 

[TheFoo]

Getting there…

 

[TheFoo]

Done! Initial low res pics from the maker (Kylle Sebree) below.

Tweaked based on one of Kylle’s existing designs. We lengthened the proportions, swapped the flag cord for cane, and used Burmese teak instead of the standard walnut or oak. The dark splotches in the teak will fade with continued light exposure.

Here’s an example of an unmodified version of his original design in walnut:

Inspiration for the changes came from Hans Wegner’s RY-26 credenza:

Gorgeous piece but no longer in production. I’m no vintage romanticist and the cost of a teak version in top condition would have been comparable to what it cost to pay Kylle to build what I ultimately specified.

But more importantly, I think Kylle’s credenza is just downright better in terms of proportions, details, and certainly craftsmanship. For example, as you’ve seen, Kylle uses dovetails at the corners. There are also mitered edges thoughtfully placed and the even the back is fully made up. I will get photos to show. In comparison, the back of the RY-26, which was built and sold as a high end piece, is simply nailed or screwed on. Also, I much prefer the floating base/legs that Kylle uses.

Anyway, the idea wasn’t to clone the RY-26, but to build a version of Kylle’s work using some details and materials inspired by it. Hopefully we succeeded!

 

[sussi]

Done! Initial low res pics from the maker (Kylle Sebree) below.

View attachment 1983949
View attachment 1983951
View attachment 1983953

Tweaked based on one of Kylle’s existing designs. We lengthened the proportions, swapped the flag cord for cane, and used Burmese teak instead of the standard walnut or oak. The dark splotches in the teak will fade with continued light exposure.

Here’s an example of an unmodified version of his original design in walnut:

View attachment 1984003

Inspiration for the changes came from Hans Wegner’s RY-26 credenza:

View attachment 1984005

Gorgeous piece but no longer in production. I’m no vintage romanticist and the cost of a teak version in top condition would have been comparable to what it cost to pay Kylle to build what I ultimately specified.

But more importantly, I think Kylle’s credenza is just downright better in terms of proportions, details, and certainly craftsmanship. For example, as you’ve seen, Kylle uses dovetails at the corners. There are also mitered edges thoughtfully placed and the even the back is fully made up. I will get photos to show. In comparison, the back of the RY-26, which was built and sold as a high end piece, is simply nailed or screwed on. Also, I much prefer the floating base/legs that Kylle uses.

Anyway, the idea wasn’t to clone the RY-26, but to build a version of Kylle’s work using some details and materials inspired by it. Hopefully we succeeded!

Congratz! This is a beauty!

 

[FlyingMonkey]

That is beautiful. A really good example of exactly when you should go with a contemporary artisan over vintage.

 

[Jr Mouse]

Looks great @TheFoo. Should be a versatile design.

Please post pics once you have it at home.

 

[TheFoo]

That is beautiful. A really good example of exactly when you should go with a contemporary artisan over vintage.

Interestingly, the vintage piece in question turns out to be teak veneer over an oak frame. I had always assumed it was solid teak. See pic:

While I understand that veneers are a legitimate choice in good furniture, in this case it looks like it was just a matter of cost cutting. The oak frame is solid wood, not ply, and oak is a less stable wood than teak. So, there is no advantage in stability. It was just cheaper to use mostly oak than all teak.

Folks tend to talk about how things were done better back whenever, but seems it’s often just nostalgia at work.