Rick's furniture projects.

These are some of the items Rick has built in the last few years.
First, for no particular reason, is a blue cupboard with punched copper door. The long door was part of a built-in cupboard in our kitchen when we moved into this house. Rick took out that cupboard and built a new piece of furniture for the door.

















This is one of a series of three similar tables - cherry candle stick table with drawer












We had a lumpy, old recliner - the kind that shows the imprint of the person who sits in it most. Rick liked the recliner part so he kept the mechanism and figured how to rebuild it with oak to make a Morris chair but a recliner. There was a period of time when parts of it covered the kitchen table and the living room floor while we tried to figure out the upholstering.





The fireplace mantle is a group project. Jay made a mold for the square tiles and I made the mold for the rectangles. Rick did all the oak work. The hearth is covered in matching tiles and someday the similar tiles will be installed in Staiger's house in Almond.










The Shaker Sewing Stand is a complicated piece of furniture because of all the drawers and the beadwork on the legs and the tapers. there are small drawers on the top - for threads - and three drawers that open toward the front and three more to open on the side. Two quilters would sit on either side and be able to reach their supplies while working. Similar pieces can be found in the Shaker Museum.














A child's sleigh...









The bottom drawer has a curved, copper bottom designed for flour or vegetables. Called a Sow Belly Cupboard, this is in our dining room. On top is a wooden stand with a carved window from a Chinese house in Singapore. Resin statues of some of the Chinese gods are displayed. There's also a Tro (Cambodian violin) that I carefully carried on every plane to get it home where the lack of humidity made it fall apart.

Mission Style Bed

In the early 1980s, Dixie Klima and I went bed shopping. Our daughters (Kathryn Klima and Emilie Hardman) were ready for new just-for-them big-girl beds. Emilie's first bed was a white metal bed with brass details and she used it one day at a time until it was nearly 20 years old.

A few years ago, Rick decided to make a Mission Style bed for Emilie. Made of quarter-sawn oak, stately, heavy and beautiful, it now fills Em and Josh's room in Somerville. The next year he made a Queen size Mission bed for Jay and then he made a Murphy bed for Jay. Now he is building a King bed, slightly different in style, very different in size. This is a log of that newest bed.

Here's the center of the foot board.




This closeup shows the end of a wide slat getting a bit of fine tuning for a fit before assembly. (The tool is a number 90 Stanley bull nose plane. It's from England and is about as hard to find as black ebony.)



The center of the headboard was assembled next. "Hidden behind" these photos, of course, were hours and hours of planning, cutting and sanding.



Work continued in the basement to make the posts for the ends of the head and foot boards while the big elements spent some time in our messy garage.



The end posts were added. These are not single pieces of wood but laminated pieces so that all sides show the "flames" of quarter sawn oak.




Once the posts were on the headboard and foot board, Rick started working on the details. He tried on flat top pieces of different sizes to find the right size and shape to finish the posts. There are four holes in each post - one on each side of the top and two at the bottom on the side that shows. The other side of the bottom will be attached to the side rails. Ebony plugs will fit into the holes. The tiny plugs are cut and shaped to fit precisely in the holes.



This is the treatment chosen for the tops of the posts. The ebony plugs have the same pyramid shape.

Two days after putting up the image of the post tops and the ebony plugs, Rick was ready to start putting the stain on the wood.




























A nearly-completed night stand in the same style.