Category Archives: Furniture

Limbert No. 346 Magazine Stand–Variations

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A take on Limbert's No. 346 magazine stand in pine. Finished in black milk paint.

A take on Limbert’s No. 346 magazine stand in pine. Finished in black milk paint.

I recently finished a simplified version of Limbert’s No. 346 Magazine stand (read more here) and have been thinking about variations on the design. This take is itself a variation, simplified to take advantage of dimensional stock and pocket-hole construction, but there’s more opportunity for increasing the stand’s utility.

It’s an attractive design, but the trapezoidal shape means you lose some storage at the ends of the shelves and the shelves become shallower towards the top. These limitations are the main reason I opted for a rectilinear design when building shelves for my office. Too, the short vertical spacing between the last few shelves means you won’t be putting any tall books on them. As it is though, it makes an attractive display stand or a fine shelf if you don’t own many books. If I were to build it again, I think I’d use the original depth to keep the extra width on the upper shelves. I’d also think about eliminating one of the shelves to allow for more spacing between them, a decision that entails altering the position of the cutouts in the sides. Continue reading →

Mackintosh at the Met

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Mackintosh Washstand

A washstand designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

While the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s holdings also include some textiles and a painting by Mackintosh, the main attraction for those interested in his furniture is this washstand. For those who might have encountered Kevin Rodel’s interpretation of the piece, the original is more subdued, lacking some of the flourishes of Rodel’s work. The case itself is overshadowed by the art glass and ceramic tile, the dark oak a backdrop for deep blues and greens. Look past the the glass and tile, and you’ll find subtle touches, like the cutouts forming the drawer handles and the grid shelf below the counter echoing in wood the glass and ceramic rectangles and squares of the backsplash and and counter.

Like the dry sink, the washstand has been supplanted by indoor plumbing–who needs a washstand when they have a private bath?–but I can’t help but think about repurposing this design to fit contemporary needs. Rodel reimagined it as a serving table, but it would also work as a sink base with little modification, either with the plumbing exposed below the open counter, or with cabinets enclosing the base.

Limbert No. 346 Build on popularwoodworking.com

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346 Magazine Shelf

The cutouts and sloping sides of Limbert’s No. 346 Magazine stand distinguish it from more pedestrian offerings from other makers.

To promote my new book, I’m contributing a series of posts to popularwoodworking.com on building a simplified version of Limbert’s No. 346. This version has all the charm of the original, but it’s easier to build. The first post briefly discusses the design and modification and links to measured drawings and parts list for the project.

Limbert Furniture Design

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An illustration from one of Limbert's booklets showing a library furnished with pieces by the company.

An illustration from one of Limbert’s booklets showing a library furnished with pieces by the company.

Limbert is often dismissed as a copyist of more capable designers, but at his best, he was a capable synthesist, combining diverse elements from European, American, and Japanese design into striking (and sometimes strikingly modern) forms. The sources for his inspiration are wide ranging. His earliest Arts and Craft line shows a debt to the architect Charles Voysey, Dutch folk forms, and Art Nouveau. The later line shows Limbert’s familiarity with the Craftsman furniture produced by Gustav Stickley, the Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Vienna Secessionists. The exposed joinery, rectilinear forms and visual mass of this furniture would not be out of place in the offerings of the many manufacturers responding to the increasing popularity of Craftsman furniture. Some of these designs match or exceed Stickley’s. Continue reading →

Limbert Furniture Company

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A drawing of the Holland factory from one of the company's booklets

A drawing of the Holland factory from one of the company’s booklets.

After years as a traveling salesman of furniture and a failed manufacturing partnership, Limbert founded the Charles P. Limbert furniture company in 1894 and spent the rest of the decade building it. By the turn of the century, his reputation as a furniture salesman was well established–the April 1901 Furniture Record called him the “furniture commission man.” That skill earned him several prominent contracts, including the Patlind Hotel in Grand Rapids, the Grand Canyon Hotel, the Mission Inn (Riverside, CA), and the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. Continue reading →

Charles P. Limbert

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Charles Limbert

Charles Limbert (1854-1923) was as interested in the business of selling furniture as in advancing the ideals of the Arts & Crafts movement.

Limbert was born in Logansville, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Akron, Ohio. After a brief detour in the carriage trade, he followed his father into furniture sales. He began as a traveling salesman, working for different companies in the Midwest including Monk & Roberts and the John A. Colby Company. During this period, he met Philip Klingman, another salesman. The two agreed to represent each other’s wares, reducing the size of their territories. The agreement marks the beginning of an extended partnership and shows Limbert’s willingness to experiment with how he did business. Continue reading →

A Fumed Finish

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fumed oak

Clockwise, beginning with the small offcut: fumed oak, fumed oak and boiled linseed oil, and unfinished.

Flatsawn–cut so that the tree’s annular rings run parallel to face of the board–white oak is less than distinguished, featuring a porous grain and and a course figure. Take the same log and quarter saw, or slice it so the annular rings rung perpendicular to the board’s face, the wood takes on a whole new character, showing a vertical grain overlayed with the flecked pattern of the tree’s medullary rays. And fuming the wood–exposing it to the fumes of ammonia–creates a chemical change in the wood as the ammonia reacts with tannic in the heartwood to darken it. A top coat of finish completes the effect, leaving the wood a rich, warm brown.  Continue reading →

Rohlfs at the Met

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The Met's Gallery 743 features this desk chair designed by Charles Rohlfs and his wife, the novelist Anna Katharine Green.

The Met’s Gallery 743 features this desk chair designed by Charles Rohlfs and his wife, the novelist Anna Katharine Green.

Charles Rohlfs occupies a curious place in the Arts and Crafts movement. Although they share many elements of furniture by contemporary makers–material choice, finish, visual mass–his designs oftentimes seem to anticpate Art Noveau or recall the Victorian tradition of ornament, especially in their use of elaborate carvings. He came to furniture design late, first working as a stove designer and actor before setting up shop in Buffalo, New York in 1897. The 1901 Pan-American Exposition established his reputation as a designer, and he would go on to participate in the 1902 International Exposition of Decorative Art in Turin and become a member of the British Royal Society of Arts. Despite this success, he retired from furniture making and became active in Buffalo politics.

A single piece represents his work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s holdings, a desk chair he designed in collaboration with his wife, the crime novelist Anna Katharine Green. Balancing the slab construction and dark finish are a slender silhouette and signature Rohlfs fretwork (here inspired by the cellular structure of oak), making for an odd, almost ethereal interpretation of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic.

Stickley Tabourette

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A Stickley side table in quartersawn white oak.

A Stickley side table in quartersawn white oak.

Side tables are a useful form, and this Gustav Stickley design is a fine example, its size and shape letting it serve in a variety of locations. Construction is straightforward: half-lap joints join the aprons; the bottom stretchers join the legs with through tenons; and the top stretchers are dovetailed to the legs. I fumed the table with ammonia to darken the oak, then wiped on a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil.