What's the buzz?

So in my last post, I was talking about a black and white chest of drawers that I was making. Yep, done that now! And also I have made the following items:

• Two bathroom cabinets


• Four jewellery boxes from oak and sycamore


• A shelf unit for a computer room


• The carcass of an AV cabinet


• Twenty two drawers made from cedar


• Nine dovetailed pencil boxes


• Three book cases

And at the moment I am alternating between making a sideboard and a blanket chest. So I have been busy.

Today I have been spraying some of the sideboard door. The sideboard is completely black, and having sprayed 35 big panels black, the spray room is now black. And sometime, like yesterday, I seem to get as much black over myself as over what I am spraying. Don't ask how or why, but yesterday I did manage to spill 1/2 litre of the lacquer, all over the spray room table, floor, my measuring scales and myself. Although there was lots of black running everywhere, the air was a dark shade of blue!

While I am waiting for coats of lacquer to dry, I swap between projects. So today not only have I been shaping the legs of the blacket chest, I have also been making some 3d CAD models of a drinks cabinet I want to make for early next year.

I plan to make the cabinet from oak (the light brown in the model) and wenge (the dark brown in the model). As it is a drinks cabinet, the top most shelf will be used to hang wine glasses from, while the other shelf used to store spirits and mixers. I can't decide yet if I should made something for the bottom shelf area for storing wine bottles lying down.

Past and present

I have been busy the last few weeks - helping someone in the workshop making a table in fact.

The chance came up that I could help make a table that is a nine-tenths scale reproduction of a table that William Wilberforce used to sign the document that abolished the slave trade. The original table is held in The Museum in Docklands, London.

The we made was about five foot round, eight curved faced drawers and a leather top writing surface. The table stood on a traditional style curved leg assembly on four brass castors. The wood used was a mixture of modern material for hidden areas (ply and the like), with mahogany being used for all the visible surfaces.

Two of us working on it, and it was finished in about five weeks. Not bad going!

So now I am back to making my own pieces. I have come up with a range of product I want to make that allow people to have bespoke furniture, but at more affordable prices. These pieces won't be a cheap as the Nordic/Oak/Pine warehouse places, but won't be as expensive as high end pieces (but I can still make them if required!). All the pieces can be made larger/smaller as required.

The first piece I am making is a chest of drawers. It is being made so one half is white and the other is black. It looks as if someone has got two chests, cut them in half and stuck them back together again. A bit two-tone perhaps?

I am just at the phase now where I am spraying the black half...and it is a right pain, as you need to be very careful not to get dust and dirt on the surface as it really shows. And in a dusty workshop that is hard!

Twenty years ago

Yes, it was twenty years ago that I joined NatWest IT. It was the first day of a nine week training course in Jackson Structured Programming and PL/1.

Seems like only yesterday........

......and here I am now those years later not doing IT as a profession any more.

Anyway, the SDC ended the other week. Three shows in three months. Not bad. All different, and all different experiences. The one I enjoyed the most was the East London Design Show. Maybe because it was the second show I had done and knew a bit more of what to expect, and also I had my stand better organised too. I am sure the more shows you do, the better the experience.

I made a bathroom cabinet for our own bathroom, as the one we had was too small and falling to bits (not made by me I must add). The new one is great. Big enough to take every bottle of smelly bathroom stuff, and with two really big mirror doors. So last weekend, I took down the old cabinet, painted the walls and ceiling, then hung the new cabinet. It looks so much better now. Should have been done years ago!

Finished - Bedside cabinets

First of all, let me wish you all a Happy New Year!

Just before Christmas, I finished a pair of bedside cabinets made from sycamore and oak. Go have a look at the pictures of them on my website.

I wanted to get the cabinets made for a show that starts this coming weekend (9th - 17th Jan 2010), being held at the Mall Galleries in London. It is a show run by the Society of Designer Craftsmen, which I am a member of. They are an organisation of craftspeople from various disciplines, so at the show there will be much more than just furniture!

Pop into the show if you are in the area...do you wants some bedroom cabinets by any chance (or any other bedroom furniture)?

Back in the day

So what does that mean then – "Back in the day"? Does it mean "I remember when..." or does it mean "When I was young..."?

Anyway, back in the day when I worked for people, December was the time of Christmas parties. Going too as many as possible was the thing to do, so you become one of the 'faces' on the Christmas party scene. You would get tickets to all the parties, "The Tech Apps party", "File Server party", "JFPIG" to names a few, but as always our party was always the best one to attend!

When I moved onto other companies, the parties were different, and that is mainly due to the excess of money spend on them. Free wine and beer all night, bar staff walking around with trays full of cocktail drinks that you help yourself to, a vodka shoot where you lay beneath a mini ski-jump made of ice and vodka is poured down into your mouth, the biggest chocolate fondue fountain you have ever seen. But at the end of the day, the simple parties where better…even if the food was some sandwiches supplied by Benjy’s.

I don’t think I will have a company Christmas party this year – I have to put up with myself all day and don’t think an evening of my own company will be swinging!

Since my last update I have done a couple of shows. The first was held in Chelsea Town Hall and was called "Handmade in Britain", and that was during November. The show I did last week, "The East London Design Show" was held in Shoreditch Town Hall (seems like lots of shows are held in town halls).

It is an experience doing a show, standing up for hours on end, talking to people about your furniture. It has to be done though, and gets my name and work out to the public.

Here is a picture of my stand at the East London Design Show.



Must get on now. I am making a pair of bedside cabinets. It seems to be taking ages to make them, but I keep getting interrupted by these shows!!!

A stones throw away

Today I went round to a veneer merchant to buy some sycamore veneer. It is for a pair of bedside cabinets I am making. The sycamore will be married up with some oak, and will give a light/dark combination.

The veneer merchant I use is on a big industrial estate in Beckton, East London. It is really funny as I grew up in East Ham which is only a couple of miles away, and even more odd as my grandfather worked on the gas works that used to Beckton before it was knocked down many years ago (Seen the film 'Full Metal Jacket'? That was filmed in some of the old gas works before it was finally pulled down. I remember them filming it, as all the building were made to look war torn).

Although I now have my veneer, I won't be able to use it for a while as we have a new veneer press in the workshop that is currently being renovated, as it is probably over 50 years old. It is hard to describe what a veneer press looks like. It is a cross between a cider press, a printing press and a medieval torture machine! When it is finished I will post a picture here.

I have added a couple of video links to the gallery section of my website...see if you can find them!

The trio of bookcase have now been installed and some pictures of them can also be seen on my website.

I have my first show coming up in a couple of weeks. It is called Handmade in Britain and is being held in Chelsea Old Town Hall. I have never done a show before so I am sure it will be an experience!

Till next time.....

Working from home...Scooby Doo.

Today I have been working from home busy getting images sorted for some postcards - not of my recent holiday I should add! I have three shows coming up over the next few months, so I need some sort of publicity that people can take if they like my work.

I already have business cards made - I did those earlier in the year. These are the first business cards I have ever had in my life...I can't have had a job in the past important enough to warrant them I guess. I always get a smile on my face when I think about business cards, as it reminds me a story about my dad. Many many years ago, he was given some business cards to give out to clients. A few months after he got them, I happened to find them in a box in the shed. When I asked my dad what they were doing there, he said "I gave some out, and then someone phoned me up. I don't want that to happen." Hopefully people will phone me up!

The set of three bookcases I have been making are now finished and are ready for me to collect them from the workshop. I will get some pictures done of them and post them on my website.