Over on the Chris Schwarz blog, some of the people commenting on his review of Furniture in the Southern Style mentioned one of the photos in the introduction, and the reference to it being a misrepresentation of a ball and claw foot. I thought it would be a good idea to post the photo in … Read more
Today, I picked up desk copies of “Furniture in the Southern Style: 27 Shop Drawings of Furniture from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts” – which is great news because that means the book, the companion CD of SketchUp models and the book/CD combo are in the warehouse, and starting to ship out to … Read more
When I build a reproduction, I try to remain as faithful as I can to the construction of the original – even if my modern brain says it’s not ideal. The original builder of this early 18th-century table used several techniques that wouldn’t fly in a modern shop. For one: The bottom of the drawer is … Read more
As we get closer to sending our forthcoming book about furniture from the MESDA collection to the printer, I thought it might be interesting to take you inside the sausage factory. The book consists mostly of measured drawings of 27 “less than formal” pieces of furniture made in the southern United States between 1650 and … Read more
I’ve spent the last few months staring at photographs of pieces from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) collection, while working on the drawings for our new book. While Glen D. Huey and I have great resources to work with, there have been times when we haven’t been quite sure of what we’re … Read more
I’ve been working, albeit slowly, on a small desk from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) – I wrote about full-blind dovetails found on the desk in an early post (read it here). The base of the desk holds two drawers set side-by-side. That means there is a drawer runner centered in the … Read more
You’ve read a number of posts on this blog about our upcoming book based on furniture, photos and information found at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and in Old Salem. I’m working on drawings of a few of the pieces and have come across a second use of a dovetail joint that … Read more
