Categories
Chairs General Furniture

Kintsugi Table

After a family e-reminisce about the Old Bear stories, I got a small request about the possibility of extending the life of Old Table, who had served the Gray/Scott side of the family in London and Bristol, in different houses, through many family and friends gatherings and finally out in the garden when a young pretender entered the dining room.

Restoring and renewing are deeply ingrained in my brain, alongside creating from scratch, so a trip down country was arranged. Below gives an idea of what I found. The legs were also rotten at the bottom and different lengths.

There was obviously no instant fix here, so I had the adventure of trying to take it apart, doing as little extra damage as possible.

Back in Wakefield, I set about the business of staring at the pile, abandoning bits and slowly repairing, replacing and reassembling. The idea was to leave it as a flat-pack that I could fit in the car and reassemble the whole back in Bristol. When I completed the drawer surround front, I sent a picture. I proposed leaving the colour different so old and new were obvious. Rob mentioned Kintsugi and I realised I had used that idea before on split pieces of wood I was proposing to make into chairs. Building on conversations I’d heard at several of the those family/friends gatherings, I decided to incorporate a Bling Strip, though Rob has decided it is a go faster stripe. The result, ready for more good times.

Thank you Jo for keeping me occupied with another opportunity to make people smile.

Categories
General Furniture

Build, Re-use Adapt

Some of the early furniture I made (in the spare bedroom from wood offcuts) is still in use 40+ years later. Some of it was made from wood taken from even older furniture that was just being thrown away. Some, like these, just gets re-purposed. We are decorating the hall, so adapted the old telephone table/directory store/shoe stand to be a little bench with the shoes underneath. Ruth had the idea of part painting these white and we agreed what would and wouldn’t be done. We are pleased with the result.