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Designing Furniture

A few thoughts and tips on designing furniture, and in particular designing furniture to be built by hand.

Vision, Design, Build

Vision, Design, Build

(By Helen)Ending up with a nice piece of furniture that you've made yourself is pretty satisfactory.But there's more to worry about than just cutting the joints or polishing up the finish.Sometimes the hardest part is choosing what to build. And often it's easier to...

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Want To Design, Can’t Draw?

Want To Design, Can’t Draw?

Design is a balance between function and looks. It won't work if you focus too much on one and ignore the other. But if it involves both art and science, then surely design must be skill that only very few are capable of? The truth is, anyone can do design, and the...

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What Makes Good Design?

What Makes Good Design?

When you set out to build a piece of furniture do you look to someone else's work for inspiration, or perhaps wait for a suitable plan to take your fancy? It can feel limiting when you have the motivation to crack on, but aren't sure what to build. Or you know what...

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Prototyping. Yay or Nay?

Prototyping. Yay or Nay?

For most pieces I don't prototype. It's something that often isn't necessary or which time has not been allocated for. So normally I isolate prototyping to areas that I consider to be particularly troublesome or unusual, and make a mock up of those bits alone so I can...

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Designing Furniture With Umph

Designing Furniture With Umph

I'm designing a chest at the moment and thinking about all of the usual pointers to guide me; scale, proportion etc, along with considering it's educational purpose (a new one for me). I thought I'd share with you an extra design dimension that I have within my...

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Dead Old Inspiration

Dead Old Inspiration

  If I were taught about fire breathing dragons in science at school then they'd be as real to me as dinosaurs. They told me Pluto was a planet and I wasn't going to question it. Our young minds can accept facts printed in a text book, but I realise how little of...

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25% off all series throughout December!

 Use code  XMAS2023  at checkout.

Browse the projects here.

Related Posts:

Prototyping – Part 1 Now Live!

https://youtu.be/U2wiudDPSig 'The Nest of Tables' series is now complete!Find full details & watch the intro HERE. This nest of tables is based on a design where they'll each come together with a lovely sliding fit, so it was certainly the kind of build that benefited...

Vision, Design, Build

(By Helen)Ending up with a nice piece of furniture that you've made yourself is pretty satisfactory.But there's more to worry about than just cutting the joints or polishing up the finish.Sometimes the hardest part is choosing what to build. And often it's easier to...

New Project On The Way

It's felt a bit back to roots of late as we've been talking a lot about workbenches, but for those already set and ready to build you might be relieved to hear that we're now well on with a new furniture build. After giving thought to everyone's requests and looking...

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