An Elm Mantel. December 2020
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Small Occasional table. December 2020
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A RIETVELD INSPIRED SIDE TABLE. - An architect from Atlanta posted a photo of a small side table to the Modernism Facebook group. "A Homage to Rietveld", he called it. I decided to make one for myself.
The base is 1-1/2 inch oak boards doweled at the corners. It is painted with black milk paint with a touch of gold leaf. The top assembly is walnut from a board I picked up free in Berkeley. It has a poly finish.
Rietveld was an artist, an architect and a furniture builder. His first modernist chair, the Red and Blue Chair (1917) is on the cover of FINE WOODWORKING, No.68. Rietveld built his furniture with wood. Soon after him the modernist Bauhaus artists switched to building chairs with steel tubing, leather, and canvas.
Building this table was not easy. For the top assembly to balance on one leg, and for it to be level, each corner in the base has to be exactly on the mark. Should I ever make another table like this I will build the base with welded metal tubing instead of wood.
Over the last several months I built three Rietveld chairs: his crate chair, a zig zag chair, and a Steltman chair. There are free plans for each chair on the internet and each is easy to build. All three are still in production in Europe and are marketed as works of art. Each sells for over a thousand dollars.
It is nice to have a work of art in your own home--especially one you made yourself. My favorite is the Steltman chair which is not really a "chair" at all. It is a modernist sculpture in oak. October 2020.
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Plant Stand made from Bob Hoellwarth's plans on Youtube. When I saw Bob Hoellwarth's plan for his plant sand I knew I had the finishing touch for my Summer pandemic building project. Yesterday I built the stand using Port Orford cedar boards left over from a boat project. I cut the bridal joints with my Japanese saws, chopped out the waste with a chisel, and softened the curves with my spokeshave. I left the stand unfinished knowing that in a year or two it will turn a beautiful gray. August 2020 |
MY GARRET RIETVELD CRATE CHAIR AND TABLE. One of the first chairs the movie studios closely is the Garret Rietveld crate chair. Built entirely with crate lumber (a European 1" by 6"), cut into a few standard sized rectangles which are overlapped, screwed together and painted white. Easy to build. Yet the museum directors insisted that the chair is a "masterpiece", a true original work of art.
I used left over hard wood planks (oak, gum, red oak, red cedar and birch) to make the chair and table. I plan to paint them in the fall. I used a box #8 1-1/2" self tapping screws, after drilling the top board so that the screw could be covered with a plug.
I found the plans for the chair and table on the internet. The plans are in metric. I made the chair and table 15% larger than the original plan size--easy to do when working in metric.
I intend to make another set for a friend later this Summer. This time I will purchase about 30 bf of sugar pine or poplar. It should be a lot easier to screw everything together.
Paul Mueller. July 2020 |
The new side mounted legs give the bureau a shape missing before. The brown furniture booties add a touch. The textured drawer fronts have a base coat of black milk paint covered by a coat of butter scotch buffed out with steel wool and waxed. The new pulls are ebony blocks with braided hemp cordage. The results pleased me so much I textured and painted the headboard of the bed to match. April 2020 |
Sailboat Rigging Chest, Local Madrone & Oak, Natural Fiber Cordage. December 2019 |
Sailboat Rigging Chest, Local Madrone & Oak, Natural Fiber Cordage. December 2019 |
Sailboat Book Ends, Various scraps, shellac finish. January 2019 |
Ditty Box - African mahogany, rope. September 2018 |
Tea box (cover of FWW magazine August 2018). Wenge oil finish.
July 2018 |
Sea Chest. Pine, Varnish. March 2018 |
Screen. Old Growth Redwood, Watco Oil. April 2017 |
Taliesin Lamp, Fir/Maple/Padauk, Polyurethane. February 2017 |
Bandsaw Boxes, Redwood, Shellac. September 2016 |
Black walnut Danish-style chair using a pattern from Watts' book of Scandanavian-style furniture. He spent hours with a spokeshave rounding the edges of the pieces. June 2015 |