-
Inspiration for multiple handmade gifts came after turning two garden tool handles. Using salvaged cherry and maple flooring I glued up some blocks for turning on the lathe. Surprisingly, with one exception, these are the first handles I’ve ever turned.

I liked the idea of giving a gift made with love for a specific person and to keep the theme I picked up a few more kits. The ice cream scoop uses the same Cherry and Padauk combo I used on the garden fork handle. The coffee scoop and knife handle are made from Cocobolo.

My daughter seems to luck out with the neatest projects and this year I was excited to present her with something very close to what she asked for. My instructions were to make a wood plaque of the Abbey Road album cover with The Beatles above and that’s pretty much what I did, after finding a metal reproduction of the very album.

I cut out the letters first then made the picture frame and drawers. For this project I only had to purchase flocking and an 1/8″ band saw blade. I looked for little round rock buttons at music stores to use for drawer pulls but ended up using two large square Beatles pins.

This Beatles Abbey Road shelf is made from 1950 mahogany coated with Waterlox and Bartley gel varnish. The drawer interiors are coated with wine color Suede-Tex flocking fibers which really compliment my little wood projects nicely.

I was going to make the drawers big enough to hold The Beatles Mono Box Set that I got her but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy my sharing it online.

Here is a gift I made for my daughter this Christmas that I thought I would share. Constructed of Philippine mahogany with 1/4″ birch-ply backing it’s mahogan-’E’. Based on multiples of 5 1/2″ the boxes will fit in any location on the shelf; 3 across the bottom, stacked several high or one here one there.

The shelf was finished with Sikkens Cetol Log Decor then a low-lustre BL Interior Clear topcoat. The boxes were colored with Master’s Solar-Lux dye then covered with 3 coats of Sikkens Interior Clear.

The lumber was all milled to 5/8″ or less and finished with two coats before assembly with a pin nailer. Because of the ultra-low profile of the 23 gauge brads, I only used glue and many pins for the assembly. I predrilled two holes in the birch ply 16″ o.c. for mounting and wrapped each box separately with another wrapped gift in each one.

I enjoyed the result of the letters I made for pulls. Before setting to the the bandsaw, I decided a hand drawn letter looked much better than a stencil or ruler drawn letter and all three of these came out matching italic capital letters.  After finishing each with a chisel, sharp knife, sand paper and dye they really look sharp!

In 2002 I was called to make some alterations to an interior room that I had previously worked on for the same homeowner. The task was to eliminate an interior door opening and laminate the Mahogany wall covering over the opening, closing off the door permanently.

[View with PicLens]

After machining pieces of mahogany removed from an office wall and stored in an outbuilding on site, I applied them to a new hollow-core flat panel door fastened in the opening. On the reverse side the homeowner hired an artistic painter to replicate the view outside the office window.

Well, …it wasn’t permanent! Another beautiful job well done but a few years later and a new homeowner and whamo; I destroyed this work and replaced the original door.

Zen.

Each Frank Lloyd Wright home was custom designed for it’s owner and given their name. This one is the Frank S. Sanders house, situated on rolling rock-covered hills, here in Stamford, Connecticut. Built in 1952 the Sanders house sits atop on a brick foundation rising from a large rock base and features a large cantilevered balcony and deck.

The first gallery photos show the condition I found this beautiful but damaged home when I arrived there in July of 2000. I snapped pictures of the entire house, it’s features, interior spaces and landscape and then spent some time with the client to discern her desire for the deck space. The homeowner at the time did not want me to ‘fix’ the damage and ‘restore’ the deck. She wanted me to change it. It was my job to come up with a different design that would allow her to view the forested property while seated on the deck and to built an enclosed screened-in area on that portion of the famous cantilevered deck!

We came up with a design which stole elements from the interior and cut up the old deck. I found a weakened structure; rusted steel beams and a flitch plate that was no longer attached to the now completely rotted 2″ x 12″ framing.

Some temporary supports then steel work and reframing and the deck was ready to be rebuilt. After extensive research on sail cloth flooring, which is canvas cloth pressed into lead-based paint, we agreed on a fiberglass floor.
I hired a boat builder to fiberglass the new deck. Accommodations were made for an ultra smooth and sound subfloor and the glass was applied. Custom made mahogany siding and rails were manufactured in N.Y. state and shipped to the jobsite by late September 2000.

Changing the design of an FLW original is an absurd idea considering the appreciation and few lasting examples of such an inspirational Architect but we did it, for better or worse. The alterations in style were to accommodate a functionality (over form) for the client. In that sense it was in keeping with a designed-for-the-user aspect.

[View with PicLens]

One change to the construction of this deck I affected positively was the milling of the mahogany siding for use on the inside faces of the deck walls. The original boards sat one on top of the other with no lap joint. They were butt joined and since each board steps up and sits in, each left an exposed shelf which collected water. Without anything to stop it, the water would run behind each board and down the inside, eventually destroying the infrastructure. I manufactured a ship-lap joint for those boards and they haven’t leaked since.

The new screened in porch, railings and beautifully colored mahogany siding lasted without signs of wear until 2006 when I was hired to demolish all of this work and rebuild the original deck!