Cherry Orbit

The Beaver Dam

We were not the only builders in town.  While on vacation from the house project, we kayaked a small lake that was in the middle of nowhere.  The lake was created by a man-made dam at one end with a fairly large body of water behind it that was protected and perfect for kayaking.  As we headed upstream , at the far end of the lake we came upon several small beaver dams in disarray.  We immediately thought “these animals are going nowhere”  We paddled a little further

Beaver Dam

where we came upon the Hoover dam of beaver dams rising to a height of  5 feet and a width of several hundred feet.  No wonder beavers had abandoned their lowly hovels for this Four Seasons resort.  This dam was huge enough to create a 2 acre pond behind it.

It was truly an engineering feat.  How such a massive enterprise was created and co-ordinated with such complexity and asthetic, had us rethink the whole beaver world.  A beaver was not just a large rodent, but a large rodent with a large brain and a sense of community.  The beaver dam was as successful an enterprise as the man-made dam at the far end of the lake, requiring similar ingenuity and far less money and equipment.  It was apparent that this beaver dam had been around for many years and was maintained daily with fresh mud and new wood.

It left us wondering just how much more advanced we are than beavers and of course the question, “Where were they?”

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September 25th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 100 Comments »

What It Was – Redux

A working livingroom

We were crestfallen when we pulled up to our new house and found that nothing had happened that was supposed to happen.  These projects included installation of a sink, a toilet, a smooth finished road through the woods and the completion of the exterior house siding…and water.  So, being snarky Americans, we got right on our cell phones to read our Canadian subs the riot act.  Within 2 days the place was crawling with workers, tripping over each other completing the jobs that should have been done months ago.

Lo and behold, a week later, promises had been kept and it was time for us to start in on our end of the project.

Experiencing the “overwhelmed” that any new house builder has, we divied up tasks of insulation, painting steel, installing boardwalk, all in the context of vacation, putting time aside  for swimming off the rocks, picnicing, kyaking, biking and bugger bridge.

First task was insulating walls and ceiling which proved to be much easier to accomplish by hiring the contractor to do the overhead work.  We then found out, the insulation was the easy part…the taping of the vapor barrier to seal in the insulation was an additional weeks work.  Vacation leaned heavily toward work.

The weather turned simply beautiful so we could not ignore it.  It was time to frolic and remember what this place was all about.  We found time to play and visit friends, so pretty soon, we were behind in our work again. Fortunately the weather in everchanging  fashion reminded us of the tasks at hand.  Boardwalks were built, beams painted, mountains of trash were burned and wildflowers were planted.  Blisters accumulated and camp hair was prevalent.  The last few days were devoted to interior design work when our minds were feeble and our bodies, dog-tired. We left with many measurements, memories and a year to segue to the next phase.

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September 17th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 28 Comments »

Fortunate Clients

WE are very fortunate once in awhile to have clients that really believe in us and hire us to do what we do best.  Trust is a very big word in our creative vocabulary.  These particular clients hired us to make four distinctively different pieces of furniture.

It began with an elaborate teak bed that was created from a masterpiece carving from Indonesia.  The teak wood that was left over from that job morphed into the design for a tabletop on a large coffee table.  An idea emerged with a design that related to their extensive Indonesian collection but still stood out as a modern icon.  The finish for the table was a distressed black paint over gold relating to the Indonesian palette.

Coffee Table

A  small side table was needed to sit between two chairs in the same room.  Voila! Sputnik was born.  The sweet and simple lines of this table belay the complicated relationship between the turnings, the sputnik center and the dish top.

Sputnik Side Table

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July 28th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Stump the Craftsmen

This is a game that decorators play by bringing a project that seems beyond the scope of your ability.  We say “yes, we can do it” without having any notion of how.  After the decorator leaves, we look at each other and say”how the hell are we going to do this project?”  Then we start working on it…ideas evolve….trial and error…frustration and success.  Slowly the project arises out of the ground and flowers.  This table was that project.

Demi-lune table

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July 25th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 27 Comments »

What it was

We had an incredible piece of land…now what?  New canvas…not exactly furniture, but much bigger, something that creative teeth could really sink into.  A road was a good start, one that wound through 1/4 mile of woods to open up onto a vista of granite cliffs stepping 150′ down to the water.  Six hundred feet of waterfront, deep water, privacy.  A good start.

We had a vision of a modern bird wing structure that cantilevered over the cliff.  This was going to be a house all about the view.  A structural engineer was brought in at this point and players that were willing to see beyond the usual house construction in that neck of the woods.

We designed the house, blueprints were made by a local drafting company and construction began in August 2010.  With the value of local tradesmen, some daunting and untested tasks were accomplished.  The use of steel in this area was new to the house builders and our house relied on it for its drama.  We all had to learn together how to integrate this new material.  By the end of August, our bird’s wing was flying.

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July 20th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Love Project

Three summers ago, we were property hunting in the back seat of a realtors car travelling the northshore of Lake Huron, my homeland. Having spent many days doing this, we came to the conclusion that what we were looking for was gone…drama, privacy, nature and unspeakable beauty all within 15 minutes of a liquor store. We came to understand that most Canadian  lakefront properties were postage stamp lots right beside each other or Crown Land (property of the Queen of England…go figure)  All the property elements were missing.   The last day of vacation, expressing our discouragement to the realtor, he mentioned a group of properties that were not yet for sale that might be something we were looking for.  There were 12 lots – 10 acres each, on a dramatic shore overlooking the big lake.  When we walked lot 5, we knew this was it.

To be continued…

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July 6th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Here’s How We Work

We ask the client to participate in the process…the obvious first verbal communication is sometimes exacting or vague.  What we ask the client to do is express themselves by finding, showing or telling us their ideas and tastes.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be specific to the project.  “Tell us what you love.”  Show us a place where you like to be, a form that you relate to, a color, a fabric, a vibe.  You, the client, start the creative sentence and the back and forth dance that ensues form into story, shape, architecture, color, maybe even something you didn’t even know you wanted.

Of course, this is the perfect scenario.  A lot of the time, it is like pulling teeth or a know-it-all that doesn’t know shit from shinola..then again sometimes neither do we.  At any rate, this gives you the idea of the process.

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July 4th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off

Shop Mascot

Our dog Luna runs the shop in that  EVERYONE  knows who Luna is and wants to be her friend. This  puts us on the map locally with the hood. Luna is a dog /wolf  who has a nose for dog treats and knows how to train even the most innocent passerby to adore her.   She sits outside on our loading dock all day scanning the alley for her next pigeon.  Her wild spirit and patience is an inspiration for how we live our lives each day….with her in mind.

Boss of the alley

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July 4th, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Illumination

We collect lamps/they collect us.  Lamps have their very own personality lighting and enlightening our furniture and spaces.  Lighting is tricky, in that it incorporates mood and vibe as well as dress.  At times, we have created or re-invented lighting to suit our purposes.  A  traditional crystal

Blackmoor lamp

Girdle lamp

chandelier was our first choice to light our dining room table until…we walked into a lighting store in Miami and beheld the white plastic space flowers.   A change was going to come.  We designed a silver trough to suspend three separate lights.  By day they look like floating space flowers, by night, magical candy confections.

Space flowers

The chandelier underwent another kind of incarnation with glass adornment – a surprise wherever it is hung.

Chandelier

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July 1st, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 15 Comments »

Antique Demise/Competition For Woodworkers

With some exceptions, the value of hand-crafted antique furniture has declined in the last several years.  A run of the mill walnut Chippendale low chest of drawers, that sold for $5,000, fifteen years ago, is now selling for $800-1,200.  This would be great for a young person looking to buy except there appears to be little interest in antiques with the current generation.  It does represent competition to custom furniture makers such as ourselves who would have to charge $4,000-5000 to make the same form.  As you can see, it is a muddled market and a little difficult to figure out.

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June 23rd, 2010 Filed Under Uncategorized | 4 Comments »