Lost Art Press

Different is Good

Posted on by fitz

The method I use to build kitchen cabinets is simple, strong and quick. This allows me to put more time into special details than many commercial cabinetmakers consider justifiable. This post, which responds to Eddy, who submitted the following comment on an earlier one, covers a couple of examples.

“I’m very taken with the cabinets in the 4th photo, the same photo that graces the cover of Kitchen Think. I would love to know how they are constructed. Maybe they are the same as the process you outline except for the cabinet on the right.”

1.

Eddy is correct that the main cabinet with doors is built according to the same basic method outlined in Chapter 3. The finished panel at the left end is applied to the basic cabinet built of 3/4″-thick veneer-core plywood; it fits behind the face frame, as shown in the drawing on p.43. At the client’s request, we made the end panel look the same as the one visible on the right side of the photo here, and it’s screwed to the carcase from the inside of the cabinet.

The narrow open cabinet at the right of the picture was designed to hold cookbooks and jars of dry goods. As Eddy suspected, it’s constructed somewhat differently, though the differences are slight. Instead of building a plywood carcase and applying a finished end, the cabinet is built of solid quartersawn oak. To get the look of separate boards, as our client requested, my employee at the time, Daniel O’Grady, who was the principal cabinetmaker on this job, constructed a cabinet side by nailing the two boards to cleats. You can see the location of the cleats from the nails. I wasn’t concerned about wood movement because the boards are only about 6″ wide and quartersawn.

I don’t recall what the other side is made of. It could be a 12″-deep piece of solid quartersawn white oak or a pair of boards. The point is, once the two-board panel was assembled, Daniel treated it just as he would a piece of veneer-core plywood. It and its mate on the opposite side are joined to the solid top and bottom of the cabinet by the same means as I describe in Chapter 3. One other anomaly of this cabinet: Being open, it has a shiplapped oak back to match the general character of the cabinets.

2.

The suspended glazed cabinet here, in the kitchen of Fritz Lieber and Donald Maxwell, is another anomalous example. I originally designed this cabinet to be attached at the wall and have its finished end extend down to the counter. The general contractor, Bert Gilbert, suggested that instead of blocking off part of the counter with the cabinet end we could hang the cabinet from the beam you see here. It was my first experience with all-thread rod, but not my last! Kudos to Bert for this suggestion.

Lieber Maxwell 2
The operational side of the cabinet has two glazed doors. Knowing that the clients were going to put an exhaust hood just a few inches away, I took the hood specs into account in the cabinet’s design; had I not done so, the right-hand door would not have opened. (Photo: Spectrum Creative Group)
Lieber Maxwell 1
The back (public side) of the upper cabinet. (Photo: Spectrum Creative Group)

This one is built quite differently – more along the lines of a showcase fitted with a “window” on the public side and two doors at the front. The basic case consists of three frames constructed with mortise-and-tenon joinery. The end at the wall is veneer-core plywood. For more of a furniture look than that of basic kitchen cabinetry, I mitered the stiles of the three frames at the finished end so that they would show quartersawn figure on all sides. I then glued the frames together at the mitered ends and reinforced the joints with brads.

Here’s a plan view drawing. (It’s intended to show the principle, not the actual dimensions.)

Although the drawing says the leaded glass back is fitted into a rabbeted frame, the rabbet is engineered–I fitted matching oak fillets into the casework to create a rabbet in effect, then affixed the panel, in the frame I made for it, into that.

Every kitchen I do has multiple anomalous features. They keep me sane, always providing new challenges.

– Nancy Hiller, author of Kitchen Think and Making Things Work

Editor’s note: “Kitchen Think” is now at the printer and will ship in early August. We are now taking pre-publication orders for the book. If you place your order before the book ships, you will receive a free pdf of the book at checkout.

If You Can’t Decide, Don’t

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I try to work out all aspects of a design before I build it, but often I come to a fork in the road during construction. Should the chair’s spindles be spaced like this? Or like this? 

If possible, I mock up each possibility to make my decision. But if the answer is not obvious and easy, I immediately halt work, walk away and work on something else (there’s always something else on fire here). That’s because when I force a design decision, I often regret it.

Sometimes the answer will come to me within minutes or an hour – bah, of course! Other times I have to let it stew overnight. But the answer always does come. And sometimes it’s a third or fourth path that I hadn’t considered before.

Yesterday was one of those days. I was working out the tapers on the gateleg of this little breakfast table and couldn’t decide if I wanted to taper two faces of the gateleg (like the other four legs of the table) or three (wouldn’t that look weird?). I mocked it up in pine and couldn’t make the call. 

So instead I went upstairs and made chilaquiles for my family.

The next morning I walked into the shop and knew the answer. Of course, the gateleg should be tapered on three faces. You can only see two faces of the leg at any one time. So it wouldn’t look weird at all. 

And I was right.

— Christopher Schwarz

Lighting the Low-ceilinged Kitchen

Posted on by fitz
Sometimes you have to look for clues to period lighting. I suspect this kitchen had a 9′ ceiling, considering the apparent length of the ceiling fixture rod, but you can achieve a similar look with a flush-mounted fixture. A less common light fixture is the lamp on the top of the Hoosier cabinet, which would have been this kitchen’s main preparation space. (Drawing: The Kitchen Plan Book, circa 1920, published by the Hoosier Manufacturing Company, New Castle, In.)

The older you get, the more important it is to have adequate light, whether you’re working at your bench or the kitchen counter. Natural light from windows, glazed doors and skylights is ideal, but in pre-dawn hours and evenings, or on overcast days, you need more.

If your ceiling is 8’ or lower, as ours is, choose light fixtures with headroom, as well as illumination, in mind. (I really really wanted to have 9′ ceilings on the main floor of the house, but that would have increased the cost…and I had to mind my budget.) Fixtures that hang too low can cast a blinding glare, let alone pose a risk to your noggin. Lights recessed in the ceiling maintain maximum headroom and are an excellent choice for general illumination; some varieties allow you to angle the light toward a particular spot such as a stovetop or counter (though in such cases, you’ll want to make sure you won’t cast a shadow on the workspace when you’re working).

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Bungalow-Kitchens-cover-600x743.jpg

If you’re interested in a period look, bear in mind that lighting standards have changed dramatically over the decades. Many of our grandparents cooked in rooms with much less light than we consider necessary (or at least, desirable) today. The kitchen of my 1925 bungalow had a single-bulb sconce in the mulled trim between two small sashes over the sink (similar to the set-up in the drawing at the top of this post – look closely! – and also to the one on the cover of Jane Powell’s Bungalow Kitchens, above) and a central fixture in the ceiling. When I bought the house in 1995, the ceiling fixture was one of those fluorescent coils I now recognize as cool, though I thought it ghastly when I moved in. (Nor was it the original fixture; it had been added during a mid-century update.)

A mid-century style fluorescent ceiling fixture. (Image: Home Depot)

A third fixture, a 1970s pendant wired through a wall and hung on a coppery chain, illuminated a small corner where a breakfast table had presumably once stood. This three-light set-up is typical of many 1920s kitchen I’ve seen in vintage plan books. It may have been fine for people who cooked during the day, but it’s frustrating for those who cook when it’s dark.

Reliable sources for period lighting guidance include vintage catalogs for products such as flooring or cabinets, as well as periodicals such as Old-House Journal, or books such as Bungalow Kitchens and Bungalow Bathrooms.

Architectural salvage shops and yards are a good source of original fixtures; you can often find pieces that are unique. For safety, you should have antique fixtures rewired with modern wire (and where applicable, plugs). An easily accessed, reputable source of antique lighting already rewired to contemporary safety standards is Rejuvenation.

A ceiling fixture I bought at an architectural salvage shop. The fixture itself is metal; someone painted it white. One day I may strip it, but for now I’m just happy to have the hand-painted shade that came with it.

When a fixture will hang over a sink, headroom is less important. Just make sure the bright light won’t be directly in front of your eyes.

Another find from a salvage shop, this pendant with a subtle lavender tint to the glass shade hangs over our sink. (It’s not turned on in this shot.) The bottom of the shade lands at 74″ from the floor. If that had been too low for us, we could have shortened the chain that suspends it.

If the fixture will go over a table, it can hang lower without posing a problem for headroom.



The ceiling here is 95-1/2” high. This fixture, which is quite a long one, hangs down 15”, leaving 80” of vertical clearance–no problem at all, when it hangs over a table, and high enough to avoid posing a problem even if the table weren’t there. A two-lamp sconce illuminates the stove. (The gaping round hole in the ceiling is still-unfinished vent.)
Closer to the ceiling: this “Otis” fixture, one of several low-profile models from Schoolhouse Electric.
Here, kitty kitty! Another ceiling hugger from Schoolhouse, this time with a gray tabby shade.

OK, so schoolhouse fixtures have become trite by this point. The sources mentioned here have plenty of other styles, including a burgeoning range for mid-century modern and later aesthetics as late-20th-century design regains its moment in the sun.

Wall sconces can illuminate work areas, as well as provide ambient lighting for the room. Many old-house kitchens had sconces over sinks or stoves. Some had a sconce on the wall at each doorway, too. Just make sure that any light fixture near a sink or stove is UL rated for damp locations.

The Alabax sconce from Schoolhouse
Lauri Hafvenstein installed a pair of antique sconces for lighting over the sink in her 1917 house in Washington, D.C.. (Photo: Lauri Hafvenstein)

Also consider concealed lighting in the recess below upper cabinets, which provides ideal illumination for work at the counter.

The kitchen of Bruce Chaffin and Jana Moore incorporates under-cabinet lighting, recessed lights in the ceiling, an exhaust hood with integral lighting for the stove and ambient lighting above the upper cabinets, too.

While this is by no means a comprehensive list of lighting options for kitchens with 8′ ceilings, I hope I’ve provided some food for thought. These and many more are covered in Kitchen Think.

–Nancy Hiller, author of Kitchen Think and Making Things Work

John Brown on Design

Posted on by Lost Art Press
John Brown in a 1992 photo by J Havard.

Editor’s Note: Publishing books that are simultaneously technical and personal can put you through the ringer. After months (sometimes years) of work, the result is boiled down to a brick of wood pulp, fiber tape and cotton cloth. When I wrote my first book in 2007 I thought that holding it in my hands would be akin to seeing a child being born. For me, it’s the opposite. I feel only dull relief that the project is done. I feel nothing for the book.

Usually, after a few months, I can pick up the book and look at it with fresh eyes. Eventually I make peace with it. I’m in that process with “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown,” one of the more emotional projects I’ve worked on. Today I opened the book to some of John Brown’s essays in Good Woodworking. I came across this one and smiled.

— Christopher Schwarz

Parallel to this abject disposal of hand skills is the rise of the purveyors of plans. Design is a subject that frightens many woodworkers. There are certain rules which can be quickly picked up: proportions, shapes, colour, finishes, etc. Anyone can design. Look at a child make something from a cornflake box. Some design will function, but look ugly, or it might look good and not work well. The next time it will be better.

The secret is to recognise beauty. Look at furniture. Some will cause you to be excited, so try to identify what it is that excites you. Sometimes the need comes before the inspiration. Don’t hurry! A picture will come in your head and you will be fired to get started. Sometimes the inspiration will come before the need. But, unless you can see the finished article in your head before you start, it is better to wait.

Another good thing is to copy a successful design that you like. Copying is the sincerest form of flattery. Remember, it is always polite, and you will be respected for it, to say where your inspiration came from.

My inspiration comes from all sorts of places. The opening of a book and experiencing that moment of delight when you turn a page and see a fine colour plate which causes you to catch your breath. I am fired by the impeccable hang of well-cut clothes, the style and grace of freshly washed hair over a lace collar, the sweet curve at the nape of a neck, a novel that paints pictures in my head, fine linen or cotton lawn which man-made fibres cannot copy, great architecture, and of course views of the countryside, trees, flowers and weeds, fresh under recently fallen rain.

I am not ashamed to talk about the minute things that fire my imagination. Most of them are totally unconnected with woodwork. They are to do with curves, shapes and texture. These joys, sometimes only momentarily glimpsed, set me off thinking about the next chair. There is no connection with the wonders of my eyes’ memory, but one excitement begets another. If someone says: “Are you a woodworker?” say: “No, I am an artist, I think things with my imagination, then I create them with my hands.” Do it!

— John Brown, in Issue 85, August 1999, of Good Woodworking. Reprinted in “Good Work: The Chairmaking Life of John Brown” by Christopher Williams

MACFAT Update

Posted on by fitz

JennieChair

The third edition of Jennie Alexander’s “Make a Chair from a Tree” is moving apace. We have a rough design for the book – the same 9″ x 9″ form factor as the original edition, and fonts from the same family, with a few tweaks (including full color) to update it a bit.

And of course the content is updated as well. Over her 40+ years of chairmaking and teaching chairmaking, Jennie’s process became more refined as she adopted new tools and techniques, and made the chair rungs ever lighter. But some things – interlocking joints, to name one – never changed. So the new edition is a mix of old and new text and images, featuring Jennie and some of her most ardent students.

Larry Barrett and Peter Follansbee (two of the aforementioned students, who have been instrumental in getting things in shape) finished their initial edits, and I’ve finished flowing the text into the InDesign templates. We’re currently in what I call the “pink text stage” – that is, we have a rough layout, but there are still some questions to answer, old images to dig up, photographs to take and drawings to draw. So I’m making lists of what still needs to be done.

Pages from MAFCAT_Ch6

In other words, it’s in process, but there’s still a bit of work to do before we’re ready for publication. We are, however, on track for early 2021.

If you just can’t wait for the new edition of the book, there’s a soup-to-nuts video available here on making an Alexander chair.

Pages from MAFCAT_Ch14

— Fitz