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Designing Furniture

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

The Boarded Chest – Design Origins (Part 2)

The Boarded Chest – Design Origins (Part 2)

Following from my last post on the Dug-Out Chest I’m going to look now at how furniture construction moved forward to become closer to something we might use today. As the most common item of furniture used in the Middle Ages I’m using the chest as an example. Boarded...

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The Dug-Out Chest – Design Origins (Part 1)

The Dug-Out Chest – Design Origins (Part 1)

The design for our Medieval cupboard was put together rather quickly. We didn’t have a specific example in mind to take measurements from and instead we choose dimensions by its intended use - a compact wall cupboard for storing small household items. So if it isn’t a...

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25% off all series throughout December!

 Use code  XMAS2023  at checkout.

Browse the projects here.

Related Posts:

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...

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...

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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