Deisgn for a House Addition

This is one of the elvation drawings for a home addition I have drawn for a client near St. Johns, MI.  I can't say I had much input for the design on this one because the client, an artist, had some very specific ideas about what he wanted.  As a designer, of course I like it best when I pretty much have a free hand in the design process, but I'm always sensitive to a client's ideas both functional and aesthetic, whether the ideas are general or very specific.  I can be your designer or draftsman or (as is usual) something in between, but always ready to give my best advice and effort to come up with a pleasing finished product.

Cabinet Remodel

An existing entertainment center that I remodeled to fit a larger TV--took out a partition on the right and made one tall door into the two smaller ones you see now; the opening also had to be enlarged top and bottom, and new shelves made and installed--delicate surgery by Dr. Dave.  This sort of thing can be a good alternative to new cabinets, when you like what you have but your new stuff doesn't fit.

Stylish Screen Porch

A screen porch I recently completed near St. Johns, MI.  Also added: the tapered colmuns supporting the deck.

Fence Restoration, Part 2

I just completed the rear part of a fence, the front part of which is shown in the previous post. The original fence was built in the 20's and I reproduced it almost exactly. I guess I can justifiably call it a "restoration" because I was able to use most of the original posts (or replacement posts that are themselves decades old). All the other verticals and horizontals and the top boards are of new material (Western Red Cedar). All in all this part of the fence is about 164' long, with about fifty feet of it sloping down toward the street, as shown above.

The house in the background is a 70's house, not the old stone Tudor house on the property that the fence belongs to. And why didn't I actually snap a picture of the old house, which is a beautiful thing, while I was snapping the fence? I should have. Sorry. But the fence is a beautiful thing in its own right, if I do say so myself.

Historic Restoration: Custom Fence

This is not a recent job of mine, but worth a look anyhow.

The large Tudor style home (not shown) on this lot was built in the twenties, and so was the long lattice-work fence running along one side of the property (just the front half of it shows here). This is not the original fence, which was severely rotted in many places and basically falling to pieces when I tore it down three years ago and replaced it, retaining the original styling.

While a different type of fence for a replacement would have looked OK in this place, the homeowner thought it was important to keep the original look, which was definitely tailored to the traditional style of his house. Being a fan of historic preservation, and also having a technical degree in the field, I agreed with him wholeheartedly--and went to work.

This image may not show off the character of the fence as well as it might, but maybe you can tell that it was certainly a beautiful morning for snapping a picture!

Custom Two-Sink Vanity: A Style Hybrid

This design is the joint work of myself and interior designer Barb Dock. I built it as part of a complete remodel of a 70s-era master bathroom. The whole house has been basically furnished in a modern style, with a slight veering recently into the craftsman idiom with the addition of some understated "mission style" furniture in the living room. This vanity was meant to go along with that move. It's a kind of a craftsman/modern blend, which I think works out well because the two movements are divergent but not antithetical to each other. It keeps to the straightforward lines of modernism with some added elaboration of details that backs off the doctrinaire severity of the modern style.

I find it is almost always interesting, and often productive, to put two different style approaches together in a synthesis: One way plus one way equals a third (new) way. This piece is an example of that process.

Reception Desk on a Budget

I designed and built this reception desk/cashier station for an art gallery in Owosso, Michigan. The budget was limited, so the choice was made to use economical materials (birch plywood and poplar hardwoods). Fortunately the wood stain chosen for the piece, a translucent acrylic color stain, is a type of stain that evens out color variations in the wood while still allowing much of the interesting grain patterning to show through.

Not shown are the many functional features behind the desk, providing for a cash drawer, filing cabinets, and shelf and drawer storage for office supplies and gift wrapping materials.

The style of the piece is what could be called Unobtrusive Contemporary--with an understated elegance that doesn't toot it's own horn. It's not supposed to upstage the art, after all.

The desk this new one replaces was not very big, not very functional, and not very handsome either, so this is a big improvement, which the people working at the gallery, and their customers too, will use and enjoy for years to come.

Reclaimed Wood/Barn Beam Furnture

Pictured here are some interesting pieces I made recently for an artist friend of mine using some salvaged old barn beams, other reclaimed wood, and western red cedar.

At top is a large frame that will do double duty as a frame for art works or a blank white screen for a projection TV.

Next is the headboard of a bed made with weathered old beams of about 6x8--as bedposts--with cedar slats spanning between and custom-turned finials topping the posts (also see finial detail next).

I like to make turnings in unique organic forms--shying away from traditional shapes that usually come off as stuffy and Victorian or just kind of run-of-the-mill (literally).

The next image shows an end of a large L-shaped work surface unit, and the next a cabinet for a small sink. Note that these cabinets have yet to get their top, which will be of soapstone in a nice rich dark green.

All of the barn wood is finished with a satin polyurethane after a light/medium sanding. This simple process yields a very satisfying look--the brown aged oak patterned with irregular much darker streaky areas, with lots of texture from cracks and fissures developed over decades in that old barn.

It is great having clients with a taste for the bold and different.

See the work of my artist client, Brian McKelvey, here.

And you can view my own art blog here.

Headboard Remodel

This project began with a carved oriental screen, presumably used as a bed headboard previously. To make the headboard wider to accommodate a bigger bed, posts of reclaimed barn wood were added to each end. Custom-turned double finials top the posts. The image doesn't do justice to the finishes on the added parts: the old gray wood responded well to a light sanding and two coats of varnish, yielding a a dark brownish finish with black streaks and all the interesting blotches and fissures and marks imprinted on the wood over decades; the finials were done to a mottled effect with a combination of staining and painting (green to match the screen) with sanding between coats.

A Retro-Eclectic Kitchen

The image shows the range wall of a small kitchen I designed and built recently--putting together a restored 1953 Wedgewood range, rather simple white cabinets by Plain and Fancy with a couple of vaguely Victorian brackets (and other like details), white marble countertops, and 3x6 checkerboard subway tiles on the walls. I think the look works. I have to credit my client with the inspiration for the design, and some details as well. My work on this one was mostly harmonizing things, laying things out, and putting it all together.