Tabled
January 3rd, 2011
Matt’s new year resolution to become more handy is off to a great start! Over the weekend, he and Dad put together a new (partially anyways) dining room table for us. We were looking for something big and solid feeling to fill the big space we have there in our kitchen/dining room, and the end result certainly fits the bill.
It started with some counter/island bases that were leftover from the apartment units of the construction project Matt has been working on for the last few years. He acquired two of these, and we decided to go in search of an old door to make the table top. Hardly an original idea, but we knew that finding the right door would really make or break it.
We took a trip to The Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse, an old architectural salvage warehouse on New York Avenue, not too far from our new house. Holy cool place!! There were literally thousands of old doors, fireplace surrounds, mirrors, columns, trim, windows, EVERYTHING you can imagine, packed in this old, dusty, two-story building. So much potential for these things!!
We spent about an hour sifting through the old doors, which were loosely arranged by height and size, until we found the one we settled on. Just the right amount of history (and chipping paint) to it and the right size, too. For $20, a guy and his pickup truck delivered it to our house on the spot.
Leaving the warehouse with the door.
It’s home… uh, now what do we do?
Bowser approved.
Lining it up.
Minor alterations to fit.
All aligned.
Table.
The next step is to do some sanding, and then decide upon either a glass top or a resin top, but we need to do a little research into those options. Then, the fun part will be picking out some counter-height dining chairs to go with. Take that, HGTV.
pop the bubbly
February 25th, 2008
The Design Within Reach in Adams Morgan hosted the showing of the “champagne chairs” tonight with complementary bubbly and fine chocolate from Biagio. The Champagne Chair Contest is an annual event to make the best miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork from no more than two Champagne bottles. Displayed in little 4″ Plexiglas cubes, the champagne chairs exhibited some pretty impressive craftsmanship. The DWR Staff winning pick (shown above) is made of what looks to be a ground cork/glue combo that has been meticulously and painstakingly sculpted into an elegant little chair.. The other chairs had a much more straight forward approach to using the cork. The popular-vote pick was this fun little chair.
Interesting/random little event with (miniature) furniture, bubbly, and chocolate. Doesn’t get much better.
I Heart Plywood
January 4th, 2008
I’d just like to say that I Heart Plywood. Not so much in an “I Love Lamp” sort of way, because that would just be weird. It’s more of an appreciation for the forms that modern plywood molding techniques allow. I’m thinking this probably goes back to my skateboarding days when you would spend time inspecting the uniques
curves and
contours of the board, only to then take it outside and beat it into oblivion.The photo above
(series here) is of a pretty sweet “overlap” table designed by
Eric Pfeiffer that I got for Christmas (and am actually using as I write this). Bent plywood furniture has been around for some time though, the
Eames were some of the first designers to fully utilize the plywood molding techniques that were available to them in the 1940’s-60’s and began to push the envelope creating
iconic designs that are still popular today. They even managed to create a very nice
plywood elephant. Furniture designers all around the world continue to push this medium creating
striking forms with more and more innovative uses.I tell you what though, the folks at
SKURNITURE (Skateboard+Furniture=Skurniture) really got it right.
