Last week I was at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking teaching a dozen woodworkers how to make a chair. Usually when I teach I write about the class ahead of time, but this was different from the norm. I … Continue reading →
Marc Adams School of Woodworking is a special place and I’ve been invited to teach a few classes at MASW in 2017. It is the largest woodworking school in the country with an incredibly well-equipped shop and an experienced staff … Continue reading →
There was a discussion last week over at WoodTalk Online about Darrell Peart’s books on Greene & Greene Furniture and my book “Shop Drawings for Greene & Greene Furniture” was mentioned. The question was about what projects are in the … Continue reading →
The details that make the difference between furniture that is ho-hum and furniture that is WOW are most often subtle. If all you know about historical pieces is based on second hand information, you might believe that the way things … Continue reading →
It isn’t getting what my dad used to call the “gray hair discount” and it isn’t the fact that almost everyone calls you “sir”. Those things don’t make up for the creaking joints and failing eyesight. It’s the color that … Continue reading →
This bedroom chest was one of the last pieces of furniture made before the association of the Greenes and the Halls. Cloud lift patterns appear in the handles and in the rails of the panels, but the shaping and rounding … Continue reading →
The Thorsen House is in Berkeley, several hundred miles away from the Pasadena home of the Hall brothers shop. Only the dining room furniture was part of the original commission, and workers were sent to the job site to assemble … Continue reading →
The front entry hall to the Gamble House is an enchanted place, especially in the morning when the sun hits the art glass on the front doors, and the space is bathed is a glowing yellow light. To the right … Continue reading →
When I first made a reproduction of this piece for Popular Woodworking magazine, I hadn’t seen the original, but worked from an archive photograph. This drawing is a more accurate depiction of this unusual table. The legs are subtly sculpted, … Continue reading →
High-backed chairs first appeared in the early 20th century in the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright. This rendition by the Greenes has their signature design elements of cloud lifts and ebony pegs. Although it would make … Continue reading →
This bench with storage below the seats was made for the entry hall, and has many features in common with the Blacker House chairs, although the construction is simpler. The lags are rectangular, and the rail at the top of … Continue reading →
Here is a more accurate SketchUp model of the Thorsen House plant stand, one of the projects that students can build in my “Real Details of Arts & Crafts Furniture” class. The model in the Popular Woodworking 3D Warehouse collection … Continue reading →
Sometimes our brains get wrapped around a problem, and we think we know what we need to solve it. A typical situation is a subtle angle, and a typical response is a desire to define it numerically: Purchased the two … Continue reading →
