not made in China

Vincent took a look at my blog and loved what he saw. He gave me a call with a few projects in mind.

One of the project was inspired by a table he saw at CB2.




He scanned the image and forwarded it to me... "yup, I can do it, but it's a good idea for me to stop by and go over the exact measurements first"
After going over exactly what he wanted... the design was altered to fit his needs:

1) it's a bit higher then the CB2 table (he's tall and wants to be able stand well using his laptop without having to slouch over the table),

2)it's also a bit narrower and shorter in length so it fits his kitchen space perfectly

3) made of natural wood

4) a few matching shelves above the table

5) a few minor adjustments so the table will fit well with the floor trim and other furnishing in the kitchen.

6)easily disassembled for when he moves

I didn't look at the cost of the CB2 table, I just based the cost of the table on my estimated time and materials... only right before I wrote this post did I compare the prices... and I was surprised. Including higher grade material, the extra shelves, delivery and installation the cost was not much higher than the CB2 table (but that's including extra stuff and a visit to measure and careful planning for a custom unit).

And it's definitely constructed better too, using higher quality material and detailed craftsmanship...



















I think it looks amazing. It totally improved his kitchen space.
and it was a better deal than CB2, and he's supporting local people.

Ryan: man of many hats

EMPTY

FULLY LOADED
ryan is a busy man. along with a full time job he runs a record label and also makes music as well... He needed an area in his apt for his music set up. I built a desk to hold his records, turn tables, keyboards, Mac, speakers etc... I installed it seamlessly into a small niche in his apt and now he has an amazing workstation. And now he's ready to rock.

Roger's masterpiece

roger has an apt on the ues, his front widow faces central park. He is an art collector and artist himself. He also loves gardening and has an amazing plant collecting that overflows from his front window onto the fire-escape. The window grill is something he designed himself to hold planters. When it's open the plant life fill his living room in a natural loving way.
I worked with a faux-finisher and together with input from a handful of designers we completely transformed his living room. I built two bookshelves (the bottom portion with two drawers) w/ mirrored backs. One large cabinet w/ mirrored doors and side. Bracketless narrow shelves for artwork and bracketless triangle shelves. Along with rehabing the fireplace and random other odds and ends.

bracketless narrow shelves and bookshelf.

roger's artwork

large cabinet all mirrored, inside adjustable shelves.

triangle shelves

view of planter window grill open.

view from kitchen.

fireplace with artwork.

boookshelf w mirrored back

bottom portion of bookshelf: 2 draws
.

Neils maxed out loft/work room

We took Neils room, which is small for sure, and packed in as much as we could.
I built a loft bed:

Also work desk, and shelves using oak wood and staining it a dark ebony to match the rest of his apt. It turned out amazing:

I included a secret storage area on top of the shelving unit:

Also included in this project was a cabinet for his hallway:


All in all it turned out pretty awesome.

work desk 'mostly' completed

This is a 'longer' term project. Lilly, a jazz musician, needed a desk that would work well for her specific needs. One of the ideas was to add curved elements to the room. We thought that adding curves would offset the otherwise very sharp square feel the room had. Also we liked the natural wood feel that was already there, so we went with more natural wood.
She moved into this space about 2 months ago. The plan was to first build the desk, and then move onto storage of clothes, and general fixing up.
Due to her hectic schedule, We're only able to meet once every few weeks. At this point the desk is mostly done...
(The desk has lots of cool curvy elements. I tried to show them as best I could)
Here are the before pix:



And here are the 'afters':

karla and family ELFA!

I first met Karla right as her and her family were moving into this new loft. She needed someone to install Elfa shelving and help create workable storage for many areas in the loft. I'm not going to show everything (cuz it would be boring and redundant), but I wanted to post a few examples of Elfa shelving (and what I've done with it). It's by no means my favorite subject to work with. I dont find it extremely pleasing to look at... etc.



But, I do think that of all the choices in storage systems, it's the best (for the money) that I know of. It's fairly quick and painless to put up, it does have a basically nice clean look to it, its durable, easily changeable, the Container store has always been helpful, anytime I have called with any questions... and I believe a lot of the Elfa shelving components can be returned if not needed....
That said... I spent a few days at Karla's screwing Elfa hangers to the walls. She had alot of Elfa stuff from her previous living space, so the plan was to try and reuse as much of it as possible. Some of the pictures I'm showing I got a bit more creative, to make the shelving work better in the new space...



This is May's room. Karla's daughter. We tore out the old stuff in the room and installed Elfa for a lot of the shelving, and desks. I customized some of the shelving to make it work better in this situation. Her room ended up looking beautiful.