This interesting and unique - but not especially attractive - staircase and slide combination comes to us via an anonymous email. Anyone know who built it or where it is?
Alice Roth Suszynski's boxes & chests
We last ran a piece on Alice Suszynski's work a few years ago - at the time, she had recently produced an absolutely stunning wooden Arts & Crafts chandelier. Her newest venture is on a slightly smaller scale, although the work is no less intricate and attractive. Recently Alice has been busy making jewelry boxes that are quite a bit different from any you've seen before; some are inlaid, others etched or decorated with interesting dark wood accents; all are hand-made from top-quality woods with beautiful grain, and many include nods to Asian, Prairie and Arts & Crafts forms, although several are firmly modern and would be an excellent gift for an aficionado of almost any style.
Her Rye Grass flatware storage box is also particularly attractive. Alice is open to commissions for a wide range of woodwork projects.
Tim Uli's gate-leg tables
Our friend Tim Uli at T. M. Uli & Son sends this update regarding their sturdy, beautiful gate-leg tables:
... since we first listed on Hewn and Hammered over 4 years ago, our collection of gate leg tables has grown, from the one shown at the time. This type of table is one the most useful pieces of furniture that you can own. It has also been our most popular piece requested by our clients. And as our "Gate leg Gallery" shows, it can be made to meet your particular needs. This table has been modified from it's original size and style, from contemporary to Arts and Crafts and has been made with one leaf, that is only 29" long when opened, to a multi-leaf version that is 110" when opened completely. If you occasionally need a large table, but don't want one taking up your living space everyday, this is the table for you. See how much space you have for your entertaining and check with us to build you a table. There is a waiting list; so get your name on it so you can have your table before those summer and holiday get togethers roll around. Most of these tables can be sent via UPS for about $150 throughout the US. Truck shipping is also available for the larger tables.
Greentea Design Winter Sale
Just got an email today from one of my favorite retailers, Greentea Design: they're having a big winter sale, with some furniture items as much as 30% off! While much of what they sell is a mixture of traditional and contemporary Asian-inflected wooden furniture, the vast majority of it is a perfect fit for traditional Craftsman homes - remember, there's a long tradition, going back to Greene & Greene, of mixing Japanese and Chinese themes with the Craftsman look.
One of my favorite product lines at Greentea is their Maru collection, which consists of various tables (and other items) made from wood reclaimed from floors in old Korean homes and other buildings. Beautiful, classic, and green, too! The sale even includes 20% off on Greentea's stock kitchens, all of which are gorgeous and many of which are a perfect modernizing feature which won't overwhelm the look & feel of an older home.
I'm writing to let you know that Greentea Design's Winter Sale starts on January 6th. This is one of our biggest sales of the year. We're offering up to 30% off throughout the entire website. I had hoped to send this off earlier, but the sale start date got bumped up suddenly.
The Winter Sale discounts are offered based on the collection the furniture is in. The Kuryo Collection gets the biggest discount at 30% off. The popular Maru Table Collection, made directly from reclaimed Korean floors has a discount of 10%. The Sakura lighting collection and Antiques Section are both 10% off as well. The rest of Greentea Design's line is 20% off. The sale only applies to stock pieces; custom orders are excluded from any discounts.
sinusoidal teak door in Surat, India
I'm not usually a huge fan of modern architecture - obviously, given the theme of this site - but the material and the flowing organic quality of this door really struck me. Designed by Matharoo Associates in Surat, India, it is installed in a private residence.
At 5.2m high and 1.7m wide, the door is comprised of 40 sections of 254mm-thick Burma teak. Each section is carved so that the door integrates 160 pulleys, 80 ball bearings, a wire-rope and a counter weight hidden within the single pivot.
Stacked one above the other in the closed position, each plank can then rotate by a simple push causing the door to reconfigure into a sinusoidal curve.Despite only submitting the door for the competition, the accompanying 1700m² showpiece house features a number of similarly inventive components, including a light-emitting onyx wall, which also caught the judges attention.
Christopher Thomson Ironworks
New Mexico master craftsman Christopher Thomson designs and forges furniture, architectural detailing and other bits & trim at his rural studio. As you'd expect from both the medium and his location in the southwest, much of it is very much in the Mission Revival style, but some pieces are an excellent complement to Craftsman homes as well.
ofuro: Japanese soaking tubs
pictured above: a beautiful custom wooden ofuro designed & built by Bartok Design
A few years ago, I remodeled my bathroom, and removed a traditional shower/tub combo. In replacing it with a tiled shower stall and a tub, I faced a dilemma: how to fit these two new items in the same space? Luckily, my solution was Kohler's Greek Soaking Tub, substantially deeper, wider and shorter than their traditional tubs. However, I originally investigated building a custom Japanese soaking tub - or ofuro - before discarding that idea in favor of my lower-cost Kohler alternative.
My father is facing a similar project: he wants to turn the upstairs in his 1917 Craftsman home into a small apartment, with the 1/2 bath currently there becoming a full, albeit tiny, bathroom. Being that the entire upstairs of his house is finished in rich rough wood - mostly raw redwood planks and other woods - he wants the bath to be similarly subtle and consistent, so I recommended an ofuro.
One of the best resources on the subject is Bruce Smith & Yoshiko Yamamoto's Japanese Baths book - lots of eyecandy and ideas in it. But here are some other resources that may be useful.
- Hydro Systems' 4040 round/square soaking tub
- Neo-Metro's luxury baths
- THG's Yoko
- Neptune makes some larger whirlpools in a vaguely Japanese style
- MTI has a huge line of luxury baths, including several space-saving corner models and a few deep soakers
- online retailer Signature Hardware has a nice consolidated listing for several different makers of unorthodox bath & soaking tubs
- I saw a Cabuchon tub recently installed in Portland, Oregon; it looked great but I couldn't exactly strip down and take a bath at the cocktail party where I saw it
- Bathpro's Yubune are short and deep
- TeakTubs look gorgeous but I'm not sure how safe they'd be on a second story, but as long as they're sealed well, I know teak shouldn't split or swell, so maybe they're fine
- Robert's Hot Tubs makes some really nice tubs, several of which are bathroom-sized
- Bartok Design's custom Japanese tubs are beautiful and minimalist
- Driftwood Design also makes custom wooden baths
- master carpenter Hiroshi Sakaguchi also makes custom tubs, all of which are absolutely gorgeous
- of course, if the floor is strong enough, you can always frame & pour your own concrete tub to fit any possible shape or space
- for less than $900, you can have a portable ofuro that will fit in a large shower stall or which can be placed above a drain on a tiled floor - something you can take with you, and one of the simplest solutions to this sort of problem. No reason you can't use a flexible filler, with a hook on the wall above it to turn it into a shower!
quarter-sawn white oak & tile fireplace surround
The surround above was built by a reader who designed it entirely in Google's free Sketchup application and then built the piece from quarter-sawn white oak (finished with a Minwax "English Chestnut" stain and wipe-on polyeurethane), using only hand tools. The tile is from Minneapolis' Claysquared. Take a look at his other Craftsman designs here; they include light fixtures, furniture and more.
Mission Revival home in San Jose's Palm Haven
Lookiloos has a terrific profile on Michael Borbely's gorgeous Mission Revival home in San Jose, California. The tile, beams, fixtures - everything is spot-on and a really nice example of the style.
The stark white house at the end of Plaza Drive in San Jose's historic Palm Haven neighborhood takes you by surprise. It's small in scale, a single story on a corner lot. But its domed tower and decorative parapet across the roofline force you to take a second look.
This is Michael Borbely's mini masterpiece - a recently completed Mission Revival house of stucco and tile that took years of research to create, plus help from San Jose's Fireclay Tile to reproduce century-old details.
Borbely, 45, is an architectural activist of sorts who spearheaded an effort several years ago to restore the pillars at the entrance to the 1930s Palm Haven in Willow Glen to their original Mission Revival style. So when he was ready for a new project after selling his Prairie style house in the neighborhood, "I looked for the house in the worst condition that had the most impact on the neighborhood." He decided on a tiny Spanish style house for sale nearby in need of a major remodel. He wanted the house to fit into the streetscape and, taking some cues from the pillars and an original Mission Revival house in the neighborhood, decided to reinvent a scaled-down version.
really useful: Klenk ratcheting screwdriver
Ratcheting screwdrivers aren't all that new, but this is by far the best one I've found. It's better made and less expensive than a lot of others out there, and - at my house at least - replaces a whole bunch of other screwdrivers in my toolbox. Its advantages over the Snap-On and Sears models are innumerable, but principally, the knob on the shaft that allows the bit to turn four times for every handle turn - it's as fast as a drill driver in this respect, and is a huge time saver for long screws. It also has far better bit storage is easier and faster and much more secure than the clips on the Sears model. $17 from Bubba Deals, probably as good a price at your local independent hardware store.
Mission corner cabinet by Joel Liebman
Back in 2005, we published a short article on the very gifted New England woodworker Joel Liebman. While many of his colleagues in the region stay strictly focused on the area's Shaker tradition, Joel has melded Shaker lines with Craftsman detailing, producing pieces that are both new and classic at the same time.
He wrote recently to share a piece he finished not too long ago. This corner cabinet, which maximizes space that otherwise might go unused, is made of some very interesting woods - Sapele, Bubinga and Wenge - and includes a nice bit of art glass on the upper doors. The handles are reproduction Stickley designs. It is, of course, a one-of-a-kind piece; contact Joel if you'd like to commission something, and if you do, please send us pictures of the finished product.
historic window expert in Sacramento
Our friend Janice Calpo has been a champion of historic homes - and especially of historic windows! - here in Sacramento for several years. She recently shared the following with me, and I'm very happy to spread this news to all historic home owners in the greater Sacramento area"
Great big news for us right here in River City: nationally renowned historic windows expert and author Terry Meany has arrived! He and his wife have decided to relocate to our sunny climate after 20 years in the Seattle rain … Terry is a window repair contractor and author of the book Working Windows: A Guide to the Repair and Restoration of Wood Windows
.
Terry himself has repaired and restored over 3,000 windows in the Seattle area, including residential and small and large commercial buildings. With such experience, his approach is highly efficient, thus keeping time and costs well within reason.
Now Terry is available to work on our Sacramento windows. He can do anything from a few small repairs to complete restoration, and of course weather-stripping. For those who want to do their own windows work, he is available to guide them through it too. He is happy to talk with people about whatever their needs may be!
.Terry himself has repaired and restored over 3,000 windows in the Seattle area, including residential and small and large commercial buildings. With such experience, his approach is highly efficient, thus keeping time and costs well within reason.
Now Terry is available to work on our Sacramento windows. He can do anything from a few small repairs to complete restoration, and of course weather-stripping. For those who want to do their own windows work, he is available to guide them through it too. He is happy to talk with people about whatever their needs may be!
Terry can be reached at 206.518.3402 or via email.
550 sq ft, no word on mpg
no comment.
how to remodel a kitchen in 905 days
About 2 1/2 years ago we started on a kitchen remodel project. If you have never done a massive kitchen remodel to an 83 year old house on hill, in a historic neighborhood, then you may doubt that it is a process that could take more than two years. 2 1/2 ago I would have doubted it too.
To be fair, the kitchen has been "done" for about 7 months. In fact I started this blog right about the time the kitchen was "done".
But now the kitchen is done "done". The last painful details (including a crack in a custom built sink) were finally completed about 3 weeks ago. So I have decided to document this kitchen. And where do I document everything in my life? Well here of course!
I won't go into all the gory details. But basically we knocked out walls and turned a kitchen, a laundry room and my old office into a large kitchen and eating area. We moved the laundry room to what was formerly a spooky little space under the garage. We blasted through the foundation of the house to make a door that attaches the new laundry room to the kitchen.
The finished product is a beautiful, warm room. Alternatively modern, Victorian and Prairie, it uses light and wood and tile in concert better than any other remodel I've seen in the last few years.
Congratulations to greg and his hard-working architects, Victoria Yust & Ian McIlvain of Tierra Sol y Mar, and the craftspeople who did the actual building of the room.
contemporary Craftsman near SLO, CA
Here's a contemporary melding of Ranch, Mid-Century and Craftsman styles, with some very modern-looking stonework, near San Luis Obispo, CA. Check out the wonderful Greene-inspired door.
a Greentea Design remodeled kitchen in Ottawa
[the finished kitchen; photo by Kim]
Last week, in our post on Greentea Design, I made a quick mention of
one specific old-house kitchen remodel using their cabinets. Since
then, Mike Ramsey at Greentea was kind enough to supply me with
comprehensive background information on this particular project, and I
thought it would be of interest to all of you - not just those
considering a kitchen remodel, but anyone interested in how this
Asian-influenced cabinetry can work in a Craftsman home.
The
kitchen in Kim's turn-of-the-century Ottawa bungalow was originally
attractive, I'm sure, but long before she moved in there, someone with
a surfeit of love for Formica ripped out the original cabinetry and,
unfortunately, expressed themselves all over the room. Fast forward to the both modern and at the same time classic finished product - but don't worry, we'll spell out the whole process for you below; you can read even more about it on Kim's own blog.
Kim
had already decided to remove the non-bearing wall that separated the
kitchen from the living room, which made the previous owner's kitchen
cramped and difficult to use. In doing the demolition, she found all sorts of interesting things - layers upon layers of wallpaper and newsprint dating back to 1903. Other demo-related discoveries included what appeared to be horse hair - possibly used for insulation in the ceiling - found when removing wood paneling to allow for can lights,
Next, Greentea interviewed Kim regarding what she wanted and what she needed from the new kitchen, and produced a rough sketch of what would be possible in the new room. Kim picked out which pieces she wanted, and Greentea rendered them in Google Sketchup for confirmation of sizing before they submitted the order to their factory. Pieces included 2 single and one double Mizuya
upper cabinets, three Mizuya
base cabinets – two 3 drawer versions and a smaller one
with chopstick drawers in place of the third drawer – and finally a standard 4
foot Mizuya Pantry. Google Sketchup,
the (free) savior to the design/build industries and with a learning
curve that allows anyone to pick it up, is again called into use, this
time to generate a full render of the finished kitchen.
Soon after the demolition and basic structural changes were completed, Kim received the (very well-packed) cabinetry
from Greentea and began to put things into place. Appliances were
brought in, base cabinets were installed, and whatever minimal
modifications that were needed for plumbing were made, then sink, lighting,
and countertops came next; at this point, it was really starting to
look like the kitchen she'd been waiting for - certainly a feeling
we've all been very happy to have as a remodel starts to actually
resemble the picture we have in our heads. One neat addition at this
point: Kim had a cat hole made in the hatch to her basement, which was mounted on shock absorbers to let it move up and down smoothly - a really nice feature worth emulating.
And voila: it is done! Finally, you can see how well everything fits into the new cabinetry; her four-foot Mizuya pantry is especially spacious. Kim even made a short video tour
of the finished product, which really shows how well these cabinets
define the tone of the room, but don't overpower the rest of the house
at all.
Again, if you're at all interested in a really good deal on step tansu - my single favorite piece of cabinetry - note that Greentea is running their Step Into Summer promotion, with large discounts on all step tansu, for another two weeks (it ends on June 15!).
Recent Comments