A Mid-Century sideboard occupies the left side of the frame in this scene from an episode of George Gently.
This Mid-Century sideboard caught my eye while we were watching “Gently With Honour” on Netlfix. Looks like four turned legs connected by minimal stretchers supports the overhanging case. An open compartment with shelves on the left and a closed cupboard on the right flank a central bank of drawers.
Call it a room divider or call it a display case, this piece has a delightful asymmetry.
Many dadoes and a few miters later, I finished the Mid-Century room divider. Oil, a few coats of shellac and some paste wax finish things off. Despite a frustrating assembly, the end result is fairly pleasing, and the basic concept–a case captured by two leg assemblies and divided by an asymmetrical grid of dividers–suggests possibilities for variations on the design.
Flaking paint revealed the original finish coat for exterior shingles–it looks to be a green stain.
I took advantage of some unseasonably warm (and dry) weather to touch up some exterior paint. As part of my prep, I scraped patches of loose paint, revealing what looks to be the original finish–a green stain. So it looks like the clapboard was painted green and the shingles stained. Not an unusual approach for the period.
Dadoes join the shelves and dividers of a Mid-Centruy Modern room divider/shelf by an unknown maker.
After what has been much procrastination and edgebanding of plywood, I’ve finally begun assembly of a Mid-Century Modern shelf. It’s an attractive design with simple joinery (read more about the design here), but there’s a lot of that joinery with eleven shelves to fit in the dividers and case pieces. Too, the design is a bit of a puzzle to assemble: normally I’d glue the case together first, then slide in the dividers and shelves. However, this design is has two show faces, so the dividers and shelves get assembled before being wrapped by the case pieces. I’m putting it together in stages, beginning with the left side and gluing a column of shelves together at a time. We’ll see how it goes.
Last spring a vacant lot, still populated with old growth trees, went up for sale (it was part of a double lot the owner decided to parcel out). The real estate agent’s sign came and went without any indication of an actual sale, but late in the summer excavators appeared and cleared the lot and dug foundations. As did many local residents, we enjoyed watching construction, but I was disappointed to see some missed opportunities, like the decision to put the house on footings instead of doing a full basement, or an unnecessarily baroque roof design. I am a bit perplexed, too, by the design of the house. It exhibits bits and pieces of Craftsman design–gables make an appearance, and there are shingles over siding, for example–but it’s as if the architect (if there was a human agent behind the design and it wasn’t generated by algorithm) took a couple of different representative Arts & Crafts designs, tossed them in a blender, then picked bits and pieces at random and called it a day. At the risk of some silliness, I’m proposing “PoMoFo” as a new label, a condensation of Post-Modern Faux, to describe the style. Especially sad is the porch, a miniscule facsimile hampered by its lack of useful size. Should we be glad that at least some effort was made to blend the nascent McMansion into the neighborhood by incorporating historical elements into the design, or this the final gasp of what passes for contemporary home design?
At least the garage is at the back of the house.
The Grove Park Inn is home to the Arts & Crafts Conference organized by Bruce Johnson (Photography by Bill Murphy, Asheville, NC).
I’m thrilled to be presenting on “The Mysterious Mr. Limbert” at the 2015 Annual Arts & Crafts conference. It looks to be a fantastic program, with a good mix speakers, workshops, and sellers.
A Nakashima bench features prominently in a scene from the last episode of Hannibal’s second season.
Danish modern featured prominently in a previous episode of Hannibal, but George Nakashima’s work is on display in a scene from the final episode of the show’s second season. Who knew the FBI budget covered famous designers?
Betsy, a Curious George character, incarnated in pumpkin.
The question about what skills are transferrable from woodworking comes up on occasion in online discussions. Certainly the ability to measure, mark, and cut to that mark apply to a lot of crafts, and sometimes in unexpected ways. Take pumpkin carving. When asked what kind of jack o’ lantern he wanted, my son Peter replied “Betsy.” Betsy, for the uninitiated, is a character from the animated adaptation of the Curious George books. Peter gets points for originality, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to deliver.
An image search provided a suitable screen grab of Betsy. To transfer the image, I cut out the face and hair and traced them with a black Sharpie, then punched a toothpick along the details of the face and connected the dots. After clearing out the pumpkin, I drilled out the eyes with an appropriately-sized bit and used a pumkin-carving tool to define Betsy’s eyebrows, nose, and mouth. The hair presented more of a challenge. I first used a V chisel to define the outline of the head and hair, then used a gouge to scrape off the pumpkin’s outer skin within the hair outline. The results at least passed muster with a three-year-old.
George Nelson, Edward Wormley, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames and Jens Risom pose with their designs in a shot from the July, 1961 issue of Playboy. Image via The Selvedge Yard
In putting together a book on Mid-Century Modern Furniture, there were some materials I wanted to include but couldn’t for various reasons. One of the things I was most disappointed I couldn’t include was this image from the August, 1961 issue of Playboy. I especially like the Wormley and Risom chairs.
A Hans Wegner chair features prominently in this screen grab from episode 7 of Hannibal’s second season. Just visible in the foreground is the live edge of a Nakashima table. Image via imgur.
We’ve been catching up on season 2 of Hannibal. Usually it’s some murderous tableau or a sumptuous cannibal meal that causes my jaw to drop, but it was the furniture featured in episodes six and seven that caught my eye recently. It had special resonance after writing a book on Mid-Century Modern furniture. We see inside a character’s apartment, and the open-plan living space is practically jammed with Mid-Century furniture. In the living room Nakashima benches and a Hans Wegner chairs flank a live-edge table. In the dining nook stand Danish modern table and chairs I can’t place.
The L.A. Times had an article on Hannibal’s production design.
Hannibal creator Brian Fuller is a partner in L.A. design store Fuller + Roberts