Sketch for Limbert’s No. 81 Hall ChairThe splayed slab sides and cutouts make the No. 81 hall chair one of Limbert’s most distinctive designs. It featured in several of the company’s booklets during the height of the its Arts & Crafts Production (c. 1905-1912).

Since I’m producing as close a copy as I can in this instance, there are no design requirements to consider. To recreate the chair, I started from known dimensions (45″ h x 14″ w  x 17″ d) and catalog photos, lofting dimensions to determine the measurements for the parts. Having determined dimensions, I created a 3D model in SketchUp. For some projects I’m content to draw a rough design on paper, but a full-sized computer model can show how parts relate to each other. It’s also useful for creating patterns and visualizing how parts fit together, a useful capability when dealing with unusual angles and intersections at play in the hall chair.