Oct 06

Rebel Coffee Table, Daniel D. Brown, Ph.D., 2020

“Rebel Coffee Table” – Star Wars-inspired table

Star Wars-inspired coffee table with mahogany rebel inlay into padauk and bloodwood, with walnut/cherry base, and Tatooine drawer fronts.


This is a little coffee table for our lair, which has also become my “office” when I’m working from home after lab work. My goals were 1) design it with a smaller footprint than my crappy old table. This is a little room. 2) have a slider for quick access and stowing of keyboard/mouse. 3) cover my PC tower, which I wanted more accessible from my futon. I intentionally made it asymmetrical to reduce size, though I can easily move the top to be symmetrical if I want in the future. The left overhang will double as a mount for an adjustable arm/second monitor I can swing out of the way when not working. And 4) have a touch of geek to it, which ended up being more than a touch 😂.


The top is padauk and bloodwood, inlayed by hand with African mahogany Rebel insignia. The legs are walnut firewood I milled myself. The rest of the base is cherry. The drawer fronts were scrollsawed from purpleheart, chakte viga, padauk, bloodwood, and maple.
Pardon the poor pics. It’s a dark basement. And I ain’t hauling this thing upstairs to photograph. lol

Sep 19

Walnut Side Table

Walnut Reading Nook Side Table

This week we decided to set up a reading nook for @tamarynart in the basement (which will eventually be curtained off). I threw together this little table to go next to her new chair. The top is a walnut log I got for free down the road a few years ago (cut for power lines) and the legs are a spalted white oak log I picked up from the in-laws yard in NC last year. I had zero designs making this and built it on the fly, guided by that gorgeous feathering after I cut the log in half. I’m pretty happy with it for having essentially started as 100% firewood!

May 31

Bookcase Side Table – Daniel D. Brown, 2018

I’d say that turned out pretty damned close to my original design! This was my first time making something from rough cut lumber. I designed this piece in SketchUp to sit next to our couch, be usable for drinks on the side and knick-knacks on the back, and hold all of Tamaryn’s cookbooks. I built it out of scrap lumber obtained from a furniture maker – these were his cutoffs. The tops are live-edge walnut, the base is ash, and the shelves are walnut and mahogany. The whole thing took roughly three weeks from start to finish. Much of it’s creation was documented with more descriptions on instagram.

 

   

 

May 04

Bath Caddy – Daniel D. Brown, 2018

I finally completed this bath caddy for @tam_a_ryn. I think she likes it. It’s inspired by @wilker_dos’s design. I watched her build video a while back for a rough idea and just made something similar on the fly… with only like 5 screw ups or design changes while making it. Ha. It’s made of cherry, walnut, and maple – which was all rough sawn and a little warped Craigslist scrap initially. It was a lot of fun just getting to use my new planer to find some beautiful grain hidden within. The top slats slide to accommodate different devices, and I’ve left the grooves open to “future proof” it (as long as we have this bathtub). I can slide in new panels to fit anything else she wants to take to her bubble bath. 

  

Feb 18

Elm Coat Rack – Daniel D. Brown, 2018

Coat hanger complete! I made this thing out of an old half-rotting log someone was giving away as firewood in Squirrel Hill. I loved the endgrain, which seemed structurally sound enough, and thought it might be pretty inside. So I milled it up with my cheap chainsaw, flattened it with a router/jig, filled the knotholes with epoxy, sanded and sanded, added keyhole slots in the back, added the hardware, and finished it with Arm-R-Seal. I was gonna square it up, but @tam_a_ryn liked the sawed angles from when it was originally cut down. The hooks are staggered because I couldn’t bring myself to cover that beautiful knotted figure. Still not sure what species. Checkout the before and after pics at the end. More of this in my story highlight. Inspired by a similar coat rack made by one of my favorite woodworkers on IG, Matt Plumlee @gotwoodwrkshop.