The most expensive piece of furniture that most people use is a coffin. Yet they never get to see it or use it or enjoy it. The same people buy a fairly cheap coffee table which they use for decades. Has anyone thought about making a single piece of furniture that could be used as a coffee table or a bookcase for a lifetime, and then converted, by simply inserting a silk lining, into a “final resting place” when the time is right. Obviously the piece would be rectangular rather than coffin shaped, and it would have the appropriate metal liner where the law requires it, but even that would be neatly hidden. It would be nicely designed and executed in beautiful wood. Many possible uses: blanket chest, bench, etc. It would also open up new avenues of income for the small-business woodworking shops.
Think back to the toys of a few years ago that were called “Transformers”. They easily turned from one shape into another. Coffins could be cleverly designed to be easily disassemblable, assemblable, and convertable into a different shape to serve different purposes. We have all seen great woodworkers make fantastic pieces of furniture to house their tool collections and to show off their skills all at the same time. Why not have a tool chest that could also serve as your coffin, and you can design and built it yourself?
Any thoughts?
Replies
It's been done. Someone was marketing a coffin kit a number of years ago that doubled as a coffee table in the mean time. Cedar lined would make a nice blanket storage chest or perhaps a clothes closet.
Sure I've thought of doing that! BUT, The wife would have nothing to do with it. That Idea got shot down very quickly. I'de be happy with just an old pine box like you see in the westerns! Why bury perfectly good Walnut ??
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Most would be too long as a coffee table or "Coffin Table" for the living room. Some friends did that and rather than lose the nice table they grew accustom to they just sealed up Grandma in the table. At least she's always near when the family sits down to watch TV.
96,
Lots of mixed feelings on this one. I repeat an earlier post - Why waste good walnut? (or oak, or, mahogany, etc.)
Also, I - personally - can't see any value in buying anything you're going to see once and bury for all time (unless the circumstances of your demise come under suspicion).
None the less, lots of people think it's a good investment and pay a lot of money for such things. Now, where does one's conscience fit in? Do you build something that you feel is a waste of good wood and sell it for a lot of money? Or, do you hold to your convictions and turn the job down?
How about a compromise? Build 2 matching urns and use them as dual pedestals on the coffee table. This way you have the same utility but continue to enjoy the wood and craftsmanship after the 'final journey'. Two urns allow you to keep families together!
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Edited 7/6/2006 11:46 am by Rennie
Edited 7/6/2006 11:47 am by Rennie
Rennie,
Excellent "out of the Box" :-) thinking!!!!!
Turning nice urns provides an income producing outlet for the creative juices of good woodworkers. These urns could be put to useful purposes (eg holding up a nice Nakashima-style slab of wood as a table, for example). However used, these beautiful turnings would be around for centuries to be admired. Matching sets of urns would allow families to "stay together". Great idea!!!
96
96
Turning is but one option - whoever said an urn had to be round? Why not a box with a 'secret' compartment for the 'deceased'?
Main Entry: urn View ImagePronunciation: '&rnFunction: nounEtymology: Middle English urne, from Latin urna1 : a vessel that is typically an ornamental vase on a pedestal and that is used for various purposes (as preserving the ashes of the dead after cremation)
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Edited 7/6/2006 12:39 pm by Rennie
My cousin, a book salesman and collector, built his own coffin, stood it on end in his dining room, put removable shelves in it and uses it as a book case. Check out http://www.casketfurniture.com/ for coffin furniture and plans.
kcm,
I guess there is nothing new under the sun. Your cousin didn't just talk about it. He made it happen. Do you happen to know if he is actually selling any of these things?
96
Hi 96,My cousin has only made one of these boxes but I'm sure he'd make another one if the price was right. He's not a professional wood butcher, though (industrial arts teacher turned book salesman). After I posted the previous reply, I recalled that his daughter liked the coffin -cum-bookcase so much she talked him into giving it to her, of course, to be returned on his death.On a slight tangent, a great read is The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb. It's about a disfunctional Appalachian family who are brought grudgingly back together by the father's dying wish that his children build his casket from some rosewood he'd stored in the barn for years.As a closet buddhist, I find this idea of building your own coffin appealing. In the west, many are so afraid of death that they don't want even the slightest hint that we're all here for a relatively short time. But we can't truly enjoy living fully until we can come to terms with death and stop fearing it. Having your coffin-cum-furniture sitting around is a nice reminder of our mortality and to live each day / moment as if it were our last. Advance apologies if the spiritual reference ruffles any feathers.kcm
There was an interesting story in the Minneapolis newspaper today about a Hmong coffinmaker. It seems that traditional Hmong coffins are a very important part of their culture. He builds them from hinkoki wood, imported from Laos. This is the link to the article: http://www.startribune.com/389/story/539374.html
Mr 19,
In our family we burn the bodies then put the ashes under the oak tree in the back garden. The various parents lie there even now, with the wonderful dog Freki, also deceased.
Of course, this means that the oak tree (which is growing most vigorously, liken unto a weed) could be used to eventually make the coffins of the ladywife and I. Then we will all be reunited. (Sigh)!
Of course, those coffins and their contents could also be bont, then the ashes put in the hole of the Celebratory Planting of The New Oak, that the dear children will arrange when they have collected their ill-gotten gains (assuming it hasn't all been spent on planes and saws by then).
Recycling is a wonderful thing.
Lataxe, compost of the future.
Dear Compost (Lataxe),
Your process takes the degree of family "one-ness" to new heights (or is it depths). That reminds me. I learned that sounds were heard from Mozart's grave. They used advanced sensors to look through the ground and saw that Mozart was sitting up as much as possible in his grave, and he was erasing the notes on a sheet of music. Experts say that he was de-composing.
96
I can just hear the conversation at the next Super Bowl party:
"Sit down and have a cool one! Make yourself at home. No that's all right, toss your dogs right on up there - go ahead! Don't worry about putting your feet up on the coffee table! Don't even worry about using a damn coaster - that baby's going into the ground when I kick it."
When I was growing up I knew of a man who made his own coffin several years early and had it sitting up on two sawhorses right smack in the middle of his barn. It DID serve to freak people out and keep them from messing around his barn.
For Hermen Melville it was Queequeg, harpooner on the Pequod.Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Been a while since I read that book - perhaps 20 years or more, but from what I remember Queequeg was what in the modern, common vernacular would be termed, "A Bad Mofo." But my favorite character was Ishmael, because at the end he got to say, "And I alone escaped to tell thee." Or words to that effect.
I believe you are correct - Great book - great movie.Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. Frank Lloyd Wright
Maybe if I'am lucky enough to get an 18" Laguna BS, I'll save the crate!!Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
I didn't know that line was from Moby Dick. There's a James Taylor song I like called "Frozen Man", here is a verse that apparently contains a reference to Moby Dick:
Cool, thanks. :)
My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Somehow I think this tread should have been posted at the end of October. As a kid I always thought the Coffin/Phone Booth on the Munster's was cool. Now it would be a great place to stuff people and their cell phones.
All,
I suppose the light banter about one making one's own coffin is a way of keeping the grim reaper at arm's length, like whistling as you pass a graveyard. My own experience is somewhat less amusing.
When my oldest son, 27, killed himself last fall, he was cremated. I wasn't impressed with the assortment of containers available at the funeral home, and decided to make one myself. Using some paulonia lumber that my youngest son had sawn in the course of pursuing his forestry degee, I built a box that I felt was suitable. It was a simple box, half-blind dovetailed, with a raised panel lid. On the front of the box, I relief carved an Eagle, Globe and Anchor (Marine Corps symbol), above which I inlaid a "Marine Sniper" shoulder rocker we found in his effects. Below the EGA, I carved his rank and name, intaglio. After we'd chosen the finish color, my wife helped apply the finish. While it was, as you can imagine, the most difficult piece of work I've ever done, it was one I wanted to do, as I felt it was the last thing I'd ever be able to do for him.
All joking and maudlin rambling aside, I know other local woodworkers who have been asked to make, or add carving to, coffins for friends or acquaintences. It is a special experience, not creepy or morbid as you might think. After all, the first undertakers in this country were often cabinetmakers who delivered the coffin they'd built to the cemetary as part of the job they'd contracted to do. The word "undertaker" originally had much the same meaning as "contractor" does today.
Regards,
Ray Pine
Ray, thank you for your post. In this life love and respect for others are the only things that matter to me, so I travel on making light of everything to avoid the dark. Don't we all!
Regards, David.
Ray ,
My deepest sympathies for the loss of your son .
I have been asked 3 or 4 times about building coffins for people and each time as you suggested it felt morbid or some how wrong to do , to me .
The last call I had the guy said he was looking for a coffin , how much would I charge to build him one . I had to say , sorry that I did not offer cofffins .
The guy asked me if I ever heard of people getting buried in their car's ? he said this may not be a nostalgic thing , but rather a financial decision . He said his car was paid for and he had never spent $ 5,000 dollars on one in his whole life .
This idea of the useable coffins is very interesting .
regards dusty
Ray.... my wife, son and I would like to extend our deepest sympathy to you and your family on the loss of your son.
I worked on many occasions with Marine snipers in I Corp in VN. With all due respect for him and the Corp, I cannot help but say I have never met anyone that graduated from Marine Scout Sniper School that I would not consider an honor to go into battle with.......
The box you built was not a simple box. It was a box motivated and built with 27 years of deep love and respect and representing what he stood proudly for before his un-timely and premature demise.
"If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality".
- Norman Cousins
With highest regards for your son... Semper Fi
SARGE.. g-47
Edited 7/8/2006 10:54 pm ET by SARGEgrinder47
Sarge,
Thanks for your kind words. The accomplishments my son was most proud of were attaining Eagle Scout, and graduating 1st place from the Scout/Sniper course. The honor graduate is awarded a "HOG's tooth" (HOG=Hunter Of Gunmen), a bullet pulled from a .308 attached to a piece of para cord. He wore it around his neck always, and it is with his ashes at Arlington. His buddies and CO's from the platoon are all terrific guys.
Regards,
Ray
And I'm sure the projectile is "match-grade". Nothing ever went into the chamber and down the barrel of a M-40 and latter M40- A1 other than "match-grade" 7.62 (Winchester .308).
Arlington... very fitting. Sacred ground for the warrior.
Highest regards...
SARGE.. g-47
Sarge,
Among the possesions my son left behind, is an unopened box of Lake City Match .308's dated 1968. Don't know where he got them, but I'm sure it was because they were Carlos Hathcock-era. They are on the shelf in my gun safe, beside a photo of my son, in cammies, holding his M-40 A1.
Regards,
Ray
And indeed they were Carlos Hatchcock era. All match grades I ever saw came from Lake City. I didn't run into Carlos in VN, but did hear of some of his exploits as I worked with 3rd Marine Div. Scout Snipers. I read the book years latter and called his home in Virginia Beach. His wife answered and took a message.
Carlos called back and we spoke for 30 minutes or so. Arranged to go up and go shark fishing with him and did. He had been burned very badly and had to wear a lot of white gauze to avoid sun-light. Carlos was a true American and a patriot to the very end. A pleasure to have met and at the time a living legend of what a Marine is down to the inner-most core.
Regards...
SARGE.. g-47
Ray, My family's and my deepest sympathies on the loss of your son. What better way to show your love and to honor and respect your son than to have designed and built his final resting place! May you and your family find peace.James
pzgren,
Thanks for your kind words.
Regards,
Ray
I recently read in the paper(?) I think it was anyway. There is a group doing earth friendly burials, that is basic box (cardboard) something that will breakdown no metal liners no fabric. The bodies are not to be embalmed, no massive upright headstones. The idea is to have the body decompose back into the earth. Just thought I would pass that on.
Jeff
Years ago I build an take apart coffin supposedly for Holloween but really for my spouse's 40th birthday party and subsequent wake in February. For years it hung flat on the garage wall with a big sign "For Emergency Use Only." My scouts got a big kick out of it!
For my final, I bought the rental casket. You get a fiberglass box insert and use of a real nice unit for the services. Save the wood was available.
I remember when talking about this issue with a funeral director in my Kiwanis club, he said that you have to have a waterproof container to contain fluids. They make corragated containers for cremation for that purpose.
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