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One of the goals of this latest bench is to build a piece with enough visual interest that you could put it in a dining room (think sideboard) or a living room (think table behind a couch).
I’ve added lots of details that I think will make this work in a living space (as well as a workshop), but there is one flourish I’m not so sure about. That’s where you come in.
I’ve drawn the lower stretcher of the bench three ways, all of them taken from A.J. Roubo’s books on furniture. The first way is to just leave the stretcher straight and squared up , just like Roubo shows it on plate 11 of his books. I call this “Roubo de viril” (manly).
The second variant features a rail detail taken from one of Roubo’s table designs. It’s quite a bit more elaborate. We’ll call this one “Roubo la compliquÃ?©.” This stretcher looks fun to make but a little too frilly for my tastes (perhaps from the Late Whorehouse Furniture Era).
So I swiped a simpler S-curve shape from one of Roubo’s cabriolet leg chairs. Four line segments later, I came up with this. For the lack of a better word, I’ll call it “Roubo l’hermaphrodite.” It’s a little Jamie Lee Curtis without swinging into the Liberace zone.
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– Christopher Schwarz
