Hello,
First I’ll reintroduce myself. I was on this board several years ago and kind of dropped off when we started pumping out a family…LOL!
My name is Kevin and I’ve been a hobbiest for about 10 years. Built several things for myself, friends and family.
Right now, I’m building a simple writing style desk for my home. It is quartersawn white oak. I’ve been thinking about changing the material a little by using a different wood for the top.
Since my budget is not unlimited, I wanted to get some opinions from a group that I trust would give some honest and experienced advise…you all!
I have some nice mahogany in my rack but thought about maybe cherry too. I’m just not which, if any, would look good.
Any pics of mixed would desks would be helpful too if you care to post them up! Thanks!
Replies
Contrasting woods can look nice if done well.
Contrasting woods can be nice if one rembers that often less is more. Just my opinion.
Bob
Moving on the less is more path, red oak next to white oak presents a nice contrast....that is if you don't plan on staining it or changing the color.
I believe that contrast is good in woods. But the contrast needs to be dramatic. Like a nikce light piece of maple with a nice dark piece of walnut or mahgony. When the colors are to close to each other they just seem to not look good together.
Kaleo
http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com
I like use stark contrasts for accent parts such as pegs and pulls. Otherwise I tend to use complimentary species or stick to just one. To my taste stark contrasts bring back memories of high school wood shop cutting boards.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
Doing it tastefully is the key. Look at some examples of period pieces that use edge banding and string inlay. From them you will see that contrast is fine, but less is more. Personally, I am a big fan of holly inlay to highlight design elements. I used to be caught up in adding contrasting woods, but after a while I noticed that I was doing i just to do it, and that it wasn't adding to the esthetics of a piece, but was actually distracting and 'busy.' I suppose it is all part of the learning process.
Morning Guys,
Thanks to all who replied. Seems everyone thinks the "less is more" theory applies here.
I was having a brew and hanging out in the workshop last night attempting to visualize each option. (got home late and the kids were already in bed so no firing up of the tools in the basement)
Cant seem to "see" the whole top in mahogany against the quartersawn oak. So I think I'll go safe and do it in same wood. Perhaps the piece will lend itself to some accents in mahogany a bit furthur on in the process.
QSWO always looks good on its own. That said, you could rout a border inlay 1-2" from the perimeter, and use mahogany or cherry.
Subtelty is the key. If anything has been done to death in the studio furniture movement of the last decade or so it has been the contrasting wood thingy (almost as bad as the cartoonish chests of drawers that lean and gesticulate in various Mickey Mouse poses and indeed would look fine in a Disney store). Both kinds of pieces usually languish in third-rate galleries and never sell or sell for next to nothing. On the other hand, pieces exhibiting real design and the artistic use of contrast (Krenov, Maloof) are marketplace ultra-success stories (not to mention successes from a purely artistic standpoint). This is especially true of Sam Maloof, although I'm not a huge fan of his rocking chairs.
The availability of art veneers and cheap substrate materials essentially serving as a blank canvas for the veneer work has resulted in unbridled hideousness, IMO.
Subtelty would be say, cherry cockbeading on a walnut piece. Small accents that don't reach out and grab you by the throat. I would avoid broad spaces with contrasting woods altogether if I were you. It almost always comes off as looking very gimmicky in my opinion.
If you do the top out of a different wood you need to figure out a way to aesthetically tie the top to the rest of the piece or you risk having it look like an ill-conceived replacement of the original top (that never of course existed).
The light drawer front with a dark carcase and dark drawer front with a light carcase is particularly tiresome to me. I like to see a furniturmaker work hard to tie in grain and color of drawer fronts in with the rest of the carcase. Otherwise, I just assume they ran out of good stock before the drawers were made. It's just one of those things that has become very predictable. The casual observer is easily wowed but I think show juries are starting to be as fatigued with it as I am.
It would benefit of your artistic development greatly if you learned how to use light and shadow on a piece with mouldings or other construction features rather than resulting to using a grab-bag of species on the same piece to achieve some sort of obvious 'effect.'
Edited 9/27/2006 4:39 pm ET by CStanford
"If you do the top out of a different wood you need to figure out a way to aesthetically tie the top to the rest of the piece or you risk having it look like an ill-conceived replacement of the original top (that never of course existed)."
Good point! Did not think about that.
I've decided to go with the same wood for the top. No accent woods at all for this piece.
On a side note, I think I recall your name from when I was here a few years ago.
Thanks for the opinions.
Kevin -
This isn't a desk, or even different wood species, but it may give you some ideas.
I made this a couple of years ago just to see if I could do something with contrasting woods and/or finishes. It's all red oak with two stains. The plan was to sell it on spec, but SWMBO decided that it would be perfect as a phone stand in the family room.
Why don't you stain/finish a couple of pieces of your cherry and mahogany and see how they look.
One thing about mixing woods- they need to be complimentary in color and grain. There are some woods that just look better with others, like maple/walnut, maple/mahogany, cherry/maple, maple/purpleheart, etc.
If you have some scraps of the various species, put them next to each other and see if they look good together. Some just don't seem to be a good match but if it looks good to you, use them.
Maybe using QSWO with a lighter/darker top would do the trick. Fumed oak top and natural sides/legs/drawer(s) would look good, IMO.
the base of all one species and the top all of another might seem like to stark of a contrast.
regardless of what species you decide to use (totaly a personal preference decision in my book) it might look good to do an inlaid band in the top of the same wood as that used in the base. or make the top of QSWO with an inlay of another species, it should help tie it all back together.
Good point. Thanks for the comment.
I've decided to go with same wood for this piece. It came down to I prefer the QSWO grain for the focal point of the piece, the top.
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