Making this staked chair has been on my project list for over two years. I took some time this winter to finally tackle it. This chair design is a lot easier to make than a Windsor… but it’s rewarding all the same.
And with all the charred wood on my brain this past year, I decided to take the torch to this chair for a shou-sugi-ban finish. Here are the results of the shou-sugi-ban staked chair.
Yakisugi is a traditional method of wood preservation. Charring wood is not specific to Japan, but charring sugi (Japanese cypress) for cladding use is a traditional feature of some Japanese architecture. It’s been used primarily for practical reasons — charred wood is less susceptible to rot and moisture damage, insect damage, and ironically enough, it’s more resistant to fire. Plus, it looks pretty badass if you ask me.
I first saw a video of a guy burning sugi boards several years ago and was entranced. I knew that I wanted to try it sometime, and I decided to use our first timber frame as an experiment. So I bought a torch and lit up our white oak timbers. Read ahead for more…
Our collection of handmade pottery suddenly expanded overnight last year, and cabinet space was tight. Enter these pottery shelves, which I built over the course of a few cold nights in the workshop. We didn’t want to hide the bowls in cabinets so these are pretty simple open shelves to display them. Plus it’s easy to grab one off the shelf, though I sometimes spend an extra couple seconds deciding which one will be juuust right…
“Toddler table” would have been enough, but who can resist some good ol’ title alliteration? Forgive me, it’s late and I’m fully cognizant of the dearth of winter updates on the ol’ blog here. So here’s a little glimpse of at least one tiny project that I completed this winter. This is a toddler table for our little fellow (who will be turning 2 in March, yow).
Much of the past couple months has been imbued with sickness, cold cold weather, and sticking close to home. You know, winter stuff. The woodworking bug tends to hit me hard in the winter, so I try to carve out time whenever possible to make some stuff in the workshop. The time is always more limited than I like, especially now with a kiddo vying for as much attention as humanly possible. So it’s only appropriate that one of my woodworking projects is specifically for his benefit. Well, enough yammering, take a look!
Tools are what make any craft or trade physically possible. You cannot make a house, spoon, basket, or sweater without certain essential tools. And a quality tool makes the experience more efficient, enjoyable, accurate, and safer. As I’ve stated before, I have a particular fondness for using axes, for whatever reason. A few years ago, I wrote Axes We Love to highlight some of the high quality hand-forged axes being made out there in the world. In my second entry in the Axes We Love series, I want to highlight a few more of the talented blacksmiths who are hard at work producing custom forged axes and other tools we need to do our best work.
The nearly completed live edge wood countertop
I’ve gotta admit, there’s something really visually appealing about “live edge” wood, that is wood with the natural outline of the tree left in place and not sawn square. Last year we bought a nice slab of cedar when deliberating about how to build a countertop between the two posts of our timber frame retrofit in the kitchen. This winter the cedar appeared dry enough to go ahead and make our own DIY live edge wood countertop. I’m glad we went this route. Here are the results.
Check out this collection of beautifully simple animations of Japanese joinery in action. These are great little demonstrations of timber frame joints interlocking together.
One of our big wood scores this weekend… great for riving shakes
This was definitely the weekend for big wood. Big scores of big wood. First we saved some massive red oak logs from a local establishment with an eye for turning these big beautiful lengths of wood into shakes for a roof. (If we manage to save enough of the logs, we may even use the shakes on the upcoming roof of our timber frame pizza oven shelter.) And then by surprise, we found a local fellow who was advertising massively wide slabs of cedar… perfect for the kitchen counter we want to build.
Both of these are the kind of thing we may only find once or twice in our lifetime…
This great little video has been making the rounds recently. It’s a mini feature about Jeremy Atkinson and apprentice JoJo Wood. Atkinson is the only living clog maker still practicing his craft in England, and he’s passing on his knowledge to apprentice JoJo Wood. (JoJo is a talented wood carver in her own right.)
Highland Woodworking published my “Building Our First Shaker Blanket Chest” article on their Wood News Online publication. I wrote this a couple of months ago when April and I built a dovetailed cherry blanket chest for the first time. It was a fantastic furniture-making experience, and our first time cutting dovetails.
Hopefully this chest was the first of many more projects of its kind. Yeehaw.
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
