Wood Furniture Design: A Finished Piece of Furniture

Before today, I never had sat on something I had designed, refined, and built myself. The futon is sturdy and comfortable! There needs to be some small adjustments made in the channels, as the folding action doesn't quite work perfectly yet, and ideally I will stain and lacquer it as well. But for now, it works, it sits flat and sturdy, can support three people, and, when opened flat, you can lie all the way at the edge and it doesn't tip over. All in all, lets mark this one in the WIN column. Now for pictures!
















Thanks to Jake, Paul and Martin for all their help and tools!

Encouraging Progress, and Discouraging Quality

Dear Internet,

I wanted to let some progress happen on the project at hand before showing an update- I'm sure seeing a tiny new piece on a futon is not very thrilling, so I am happy to show you this:



The futon here is almost at completion, the two side pieces are built- just needing some sanding, the bars are cut, armrests installed, and the seating/sleeping portion was done months ago. Now, all that remains is the attachment of the horizontal braces (two of which can be seen sitting on the side pieces, a third on the way) with blind mortise and tenon joints.

I did, however, when assembling the panels, make a stupid mistake. I did not label the pieces as left or right, and somehow in the shuffle, I mixed up which panel went with which set of supports. Ideally, they would be identical, and it wouldn't be an issue, but my work is still shaky, and so, things like this happen:



This is the worst of the joints, so its not all that awful, but because of it I am now considering filing all the gaps with wood putty, sanding it flat, and painting it. While it would make it look better, it would also add a few days work to the thing, and I'd lose the natural wood feel.

I expressed my concern to Martin, purveyor of wise statements that he is, I got the advice I needed. He said, "Mike, don't worry about it. This futon, you're going to sleep on it, sit on it, stand on it, jump on it, and f*ck on it, and once you know everything, you'll build another."

So here's the plan: I will finish the construction TODAY. Look for finished pictures tomorrow.




Thanks Martin, and Happy Birthday.

San Francisco Design Week Open Studios - Thursday

Last week here in the Bay Area was San Francisco Design Week- hosted by AIGASF. On Tuesday and Thursday evening, many of the design studios in SF opened their spaces up to the public, and Jake, Monika, and I made a trip out to see as many of them as possible.

Thursday: CCS Architecture, Lunar Design, Frog Design, R/GA Media Group, Smart Design, Astro Studios

CCS Architecture was a brief stop, but the only Architecture Firm on the list for both days. What was most interesting about CCS was the space. There was almost none of it. San Francisco has very high rents, and I cannot imagine building some of these intricate models they had made without massive amounts of workspace, but here they are.

Lunar Design was a cool, relaxed workspace. The space was a great deal larger than CCS, and even as the employees were not currently, it still felt like things were getting done.



A favorite artifact was this tourney bracket for SF Design firm dodgeball. Look at all the big names that participated!



Frog Design had a neat set up, with videos being projected onto the windows of the offices. They had a live band and the usual food and drink- but boy were there hundreds of people there! The place was so packed that it was hard to get a look at anything they were showing!



R/GA Media Group focused on advertising and branding. They were behind such brands as the Barnes and Noble Nook, and various campaigns for Nike. None of us being branding designers, we found it neat, but we made our stay short.

We instead went next door for a quick stop in a fund raising soiree for some public bike company. I'm not sure what we were supposed to learn there, but we were definitely not supposed to be there, as one of the event organizers made it quite clear to us. I got three shrimp out of the deal, and Monika almost got some free socks, and we were on our way.

Smart Design had our favorite space of the night- a large open air studio with rows of desks. Here, the pictures tell a better story than I can. We did not win a raffle for a video camera or an "Objectified" DVD.



We thought we might be too late, but we headed to Astro Studios anyway, to see if they had kept their studio open late. They had, and to our surprise, they had turned their space into something of a night club, instead of any presentation regarding their company- although we may have just arrived too late for that part. None of us had come to schmooze, so we grabbed some more free drinks, played some foozeball in the dark, and went home.

A Photo Tour of the Studio

Dear Internet,

A few people have been asking what the loft looks like right now, so here's a photo tour of our space!



The exterior of the studio. We currently have a sign outside saying "Calcot Custom Fabrication." This is due to change once we think of a better name.



One angle of our shop. All the work tables you can see here I built. Looky at all the tools we got!



The shop again! Some of you with a keen eye will recognize a futon in yet another stage of development.



The drawing/prototyping desk. I built the desk and Jake made this awesome chair.



Our kitchen, still devoid of dining table and kitchen island (Coming Soon!)



Living room complete with borrowed futon from Paul, custom made coffee table by me, and the frame portion of my futon. On the table is our living room projector, giving us a TV 8 feet wide by 4 feet tall. Hi Jake!



The upstairs office is in the foreground. We built our desks, and I built the shelves to the extreme right of the picture. Jake's room with Jake-built curtain separator is in the background.



My bedroom. Still missing a bed frame, but that's the next project. So this is like OUR open studio. Thanks for reading!

San Francisco Design Week Open Studios - Tuesday

Last week here in the Bay Area was San Francisco Design Week- hosted by AIGASF. Though I found out a bit too late to attend the more formal design events, but on Tuesday and Thursday evening, many of the design studios in SF opened their spaces up to the public, and Jake, Monika, and I made a trip out to see as many of them as possible. Amongst the inevitable wine, cheese, and pretentious banter was the air of creative thinking and the expectation that these spaces will bring about awesome ideas.

Tuesday: IDEO, Adaptive Path, FuseProject, HOT Studio, New Deal Design, Ammunition

IDEO's studio was right on the waterfront, at Pier 28. While the space looked interesting enough, it isn't the home base in Palo Alto- something I'm going to have to make some time to try and see. Too much of the studio was closed to public and cameras to really enjoy it I think.

Adaptive Path is a experience design and branding firm, not our focus here, but they have a wide open space, and gave an informative tour.



We agreed that our favorite studio from the night was the one opened by FuseProject. Yves Behar did not make and apprearance, and though some spaces were closed to the public, it was only through this screen of grass-like plastic rods, so it was visible, if not accessible.



In the basement, there was this incredible materials wall, with samples of just about anything you could think of to make something out of- for inspiration when designing.



There was a slide show on the work they had been doing, and a large number of projects out on display for visitors to gawk at. So Big Name Studio + Great Show of Work + Great Accommodation for Visitors = Winner!

Hot Studio had one of the coolest spaces we saw that week- a loft-style layout with offices up top and a two-story corridor running down the middle. Would be an awesome place to have to go to every day, I just wish they did product design there.



New Deal Design was a small space, but the entire studio was open to the public. Individual workspaces, meeting rooms, project areas, all could be fully explored. I hadn't heard of them before, but I recognized many of their products. They have done all the netgear modems and routers, and most high profile, all of those Dell computers that look awesome, but aren't really sold much on the website.

Its a real shame, but Dell waited too long to get these on the market, and people already associate Dell with bad build quality and proprietary parts. But anyway- cool looking computers.



Unfortunately we were already behind schedule by the time we hit New Deal, and Ammunition was another 8 blocks out of the way (excuses, excuses) so we did not get to see their probably awesome studio.

I hope this gave you a look into some of the really neat spaces where creative folks work- and when I'm working in one soon, I'll invite you over to check it out. I'll give you the rundown on Thursday's Open Studios soon!

A Dearth of Blog Posts

I have been very busy, and alternately very lazy this week. So its been a week since I last posted. Time to get back on track.

The Futon is coming together. The side panels are nearly complete. I am a bit hesitant to cut the channels out, because if I do it wrong, it means a whole lot of work getting back again.

I started routing out a half inch channel in all the pieces, creating what we affectionately called "The Jig That Used All the Clamps." I thought I had taken a photo of this, but it seems to have disappeared.

I carefully cut the side panels using a circular saw, which required a little editing and trimming, but in the end, I have my first pictures that actually look like something was done. Hurrah!

Wood Furniture Design: This Thing I Made Yesterday

I want to show you what I made yesterday.

I am two days into the build of the futon, and after spending some time making the final versions of the joints I was practicing late last week I determined I was going to need an oddly shaped angle piece that ended up looking like this.



Each edge, each angle, each distance measured and cut specifically, each bit removed with either band saw, hack saw, miter saw or chisel where needed. I wore out my right arm getting this piece as accurate as possible, a piece with not enough flat edges to clamp in place for chiseling.



It goes here, connecting the front legs to the cross piece between the front and back of the side panel:



In the end, hardly anyone will notice it.

And I am very proud of it.