I’m designing a dining room addition for a client and they wanted me to build the furniture for it as well. I showed them this issue of Woodworkers Journal. The cover shows a beautiful Greene & Greene table.
The table looks simple enough and while I’ve done some research on it, I’m curious if anyone has tackled this or a similar type. What was you experience like.
Here’s a pic of the cover page.
Replies
Doesn't look simple to me. The top has an edging that has curves and miters. The table panel is almost certainly veneered to be stable enough for the edge treatment. The base joinery looks straight forward but there are a lot components and a lot of joints in fairly large elements and some bandsawed profiles that will probably be a challenge to cut and finish cleanly. The clear finish and exposed joinery will demand very careful workmanship.
Greene and Greene furniture is sophisticated high end woodworking despite its appearance of simple grace. You may be capable of building it, but you are going to get in trouble if you think it is simple to build. I seem to recall that most of the original Greene and Greene furniture was built by a small group of master craftsmen that worked with them for years.
John W.
I apologies for the misunderstanding of the word simple. I by no means think this is easy to build or simple. What I mean by simple is it's straight forward, doesn't hide any difficult joinery or require any unique specialty tools.
Could anyone build this because it's simple, absolutely not. I agree totally with your assessment of the challenges.
Its' design is seductive, like the Sirens calling the sailors to the rocks I too maybe misled. But what a way to go.
I was just hoping for some been there built that incite from anyone.
While I wouldn't put my talents up against the old craftsmen, in many ways I must say, I ain't that bad.
Sorry, whenever somebody uses the word "simple" when talking about a piece of furniture I always expect trouble, especially if they're asking me to build it. My unannounced business motto is "Nothing is simple and nothing is cheap."
Here is a rule of thumb I developed for quickly and dispassionately judging how complex a certain piece of furniture really is. Sit down with the design and count out the number of separate pieces of wood that will be needed to build the piece, right down to the pegs and glue blocks. Also count the number of moving elements: doors, drawers, folding table leaves etc. Almost always, the more pieces and moving elements in a design, the more time it will take to build the piece, pretty much in proportion to the part and element count.
A truly simple table would have five pieces of wood, four legs and a top. Add aprons and the count goes to nine. Adding a drawer will get you up around twenty separate pieces of wood and one moving element.
Looking at the G&G table I'd guess with the moldings and veneers, the complex base, the pegging, and what looks like a pull out top to accept extension leaves, that the part count is somewhere around 60 plus with at least two or three moving elements. Based on the part count alone, this is going to be a time consuming and expensive piece of furniture to build.
Second rule of thumb for pricing a job and actually making a profit: Take your first cost estimate for the piece, double the estimate and add 10% and you'll be a lot closer to the realistic price for the job.
Good luck, John W.
Edited 2/12/2004 12:18:08 PM ET by JohnW
Greene & Greene isn't simple. We just completed a table and 14 chairs in the style (see below). Most of it can be done with standard machinery, but I highly recommend a hollow chisel mortiser for doing all the little ebony pegs. Also, a widebelt sander makes any table top easier.
Paul, those chairs are gorgeous!
Nice work, typical G&G, not a straight edge to be seen anywhere.
John W.
Absolutely fantastic! The chairs are beautiful. Where abouts are you located?
New Mexico or Colorado area?
I haven't promised my clients chairs mostly due to my available time factor. I could see purchasing 4-6 of your chairs unfinished if your so inclined to consider.
JohnW- As to the counting system that's a very interesting approach, Ill have to give it some thought.
As to pricing, well let me say I build on a cost plus basis for this type of work. My few clients seldom ask for even approximate cost. They trust me and I work hard for that trust. This piece while simple in design looked involved enough that I wanted to get a second feel mostly to time. I mostly give time to completion promises to my clients and in this case I need it finished soon after the addition's punch list. But I may need to move that promise back a little.
Isn't Knots a great place? What a bunch of great ideas and support. Hope to return the favor.
I'm surprised to hear veneer mentioned in the same sentence as G&G for the following reasons:
The original pieces I have seen and laid hands on as well as my reading lead me to think solid wood.
Most, if not all, of the furniture was built by the same 2 bros. that built the houses and they were Scandinavian shipwrights. Hence the trademark double keyed scarf joints. They wouldn't have been experienced in veneering. I spent an entire hour once just admiring the hand-workmanship of a casement window at the Blacker House a couple of years ago.
Even though most of it was imported to So Cal, wood was plentiful in large sizes so there was no incentive to use veneer. You 'wood' not believe the double tapered Port Orford cedar framing in the Gamble. Then there's the 16 other woods to drool over before you get to the furniture.
Charles Green was highly influenced by his trips to England and Japan (hence the recurring cloud lift motif and the use of 'threes' ). The English A&C (W. Morris, Barnsley) and Japaneese aesthetics for honesty wouldn't really condone to veneer. Even though you could argue the Stickley used veneers on posts to show flake on all four sides but he manufactured furniture. G&G furniture were one-offs, specifically designed for the house it went in. They designed the houses down to the silverware, china and linens. Something that FLW followed through on as well.
Randell Mackinson is the recognized authority on all things G&G, any of his books are worth the money. Also check out Thomas Strangeland's site. His G&G repros are about as good as it gets. Besides making G&G, designing the repros are tough - there just aren't published drawings since it's all one-offs.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid - John Wayne
Alcoholic,
Sound like your pretty interested in G&G furniture. I live in British Columbia, Canada but I did make it to the Gamble house and the permanent display at the Huntington Museum. Very nice stuff.
The furniture was made by a group of craftsmen as well as the two Hall brothers. If you examine the furniture closely you can see that some of the pieces that were made in pairs are slightly different in detailing. Suggesting that different craftsmen were working on many piece at the same time. A good example are the two sideboards made for the Robinson house which incidentally is the table design in the original post.
I've made a few pieces base on G&G designs such as the sideboard for the Robinson house and the dining table for the Thorson House. Your right drawings are hard to find. I think that is largely due to the fact that the Hall brothers shop burned completely to the ground. My guess is lots of the drawing were in the shop.
The best place I've found for G&G information and designs is the G&G virtual archives. It doesn't have everything but it does have many copies of furniture drawings with detailed sizing. I believe you can also order copies of many of these.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/greeneandgreene/
http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/ggva/search?project=&siteid=238&pageno=3&id=NYDA.1960.001.03392
Here's another place I found during my research.
Jagwah,
Thanks for the link but it leads to one of the pages of the G&G virtual archives. That's one of the better drawing available and will probably be of good use as a reference.
Edited 2/12/2004 5:37:24 PM ET by HEMPSTALK
Thanks for the link. Did you know that the two top seniors in USC's architectural school get to live in the Gamble House? It's almost enough to make one go back to school.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid - John Wayne
I suspect that you are right about original G&G furniture not having veneer work. I love the style but I am by no measure really knowledgable about the details of their work.
My comment about veneer only applied to the table that is pictured in the first posting. It isn't an actual G&G, just an interpretation of the style. From the picture, the table appears to have a wide continuous band of solid wood edging around it's perimeter. Usually, to avoid crossgrain expansion problems, this type of edging is only used on a plywood core top with a shop applied veneer face. There are ways that a solid wood edging could be applied to a solid wood top, and perhaps G&G used them, but I figured it was unlikely on the table in question.
John W.
For everyone who asked me about the chairs:
Background: we are a professional furniture making company, I am the designer. We are located near Philadelphia in a 20000 sf shop. I have 7 cabinetmakers making various projects. The chairs were built by two of my guys: frame, splines, pegs by Rick Kirk, back splats by Bill Bartasch.
Design: the client asked me to "go beyond Greene and Greene". I based the basic structure of the chair on one of our existing designs, as I like the general proportions and the comfort issues were all worked out. The back splat ornament design was supplied by the client's architect, but it needed to be tuned up so that it was structurally sound. We offered the option of doing the ornament as either cutout of inlay, the client chose a combination of both. All design was done using CAD. No prototypes made - what you see was done on the first try.
Veneer: because of time pressures, we subbed out the inlaid dragonflies to Hudson River Inlay, who did a fantastic job (Thanks, Jeff Nelson!). We could have done them in house, but we needed to complete the job by a specific date.
Construction: the chair frame is actually straightforward. We use a Multi-Router to cut loose tenon joinery. The parts are mostly straight lines, just lots of them. The pegs and splines are non-structural. Holes for pegs were cut with a hollow chisel attachment on a delta drill press.
Backsplat: Hudson River Inlay uses lasers to cut the veneers, and supplied us the dragonfly in a mahogany frame. The trick on this piece was registration of the front and back veneers (the splat has the dragonfly inlay on both sides) so that the cuts would line up with the edge of the inlays. We cut the splats using a Dewalt scroll saw. Each cutout required a slight angle correction to get the lines on the front and back of the slat to line up. I don't think that a laser would have done this as well as Bill did. It took him 9.5 hours per chair to make the splats, about 5 of that was cutting the pattern. Bill spent several weeks banging away at this, and I don't think that he enjoyed every minute, but the results speak for themselves. This is what craftmanship is all about.
Total time per chair (including splats): 20 1/4 hours That may sound unbelievable to some of you, but keep in mind that we make a lot of chairs and are very good at it.
Price: $2950 for side chairs, $3650 for arm chairs. We made a total of 18 (one extra side and one extra arm.)
Table: The table is a lot simpler, just large. It is all solid mahogany. It is 10 feet long closed, 54" wide at center and 48" wide at the ends. It opens to 15' long. The base is designed to hold the leaves. The top slides open on ball bearing slides. This is an arrangement that I designed and patented. You can see details on my website:
http://www.pauldowns.com
Thank you everyone for the kind words regarding these pieces. We have over the years made a number of projects that I consider to be exceptional, this joins that group.
Paul Downs
Super! Thanks for the response. The chairs works of art.
My father impressed upon me the necessity of keeping the company of smarter and better people. I feel I'm in good stead with that bit of wisdom here at Knots. My craft is elevated by such company.
Thank you again, your work offers that inspiration and gives me another notch to reach for.
Bob
Paul:
Gorgeous work and excellent website.
Although I live in Chicago (now), I went to school at Penn and my family still lives off Bell's Mill Rd. Drive right past your new place on my way to / from the airport. Would love to stop in. For those of us that are amateurs, it would be both a privilege and an education to tour your shop.
Best,
Robbie
Paul,
would you mind posting some photos of your shop and workers in action. I can only imagine what it looks like when everyone is on task.
there are some pictures of the shop in my website: pauldowns.com. If you look carefully you can see several of the guys.
I sort of envy the guy that is allowed to sweep the floors in your shop. If I did it, I would sweep very slowly just to look at everything. Your shop produces outstanding work.
Absolutely beautiful!
Would it be possible for you to post a side view showing more of the underneath structure of the table? I'm curious about the structure and porportions on the frame and panels.
I'm just starting out in making furniture for a hobby, love the arts and crafts style but struggle with sizing pieces and the proportions of components.
Hi Paul,
Nice chairs. I curious if you employed the use of a CNC machine or pin router to execute the design in the back. My brother recently acquired a CNC router he uses to make custom guitars. This design looks like a perfect candidate for that type of machinery.
Awesome! Excluding upholstery, how many manhours? Do you have a tenoner? I recently did a set of Harvey Ellis Stickley's (2 arm + 12 side, no inlay) all by myself and it took about 800 hours. Altough I did have access to a drum sander & HCM all the tenons were done on the TS. The RO finish sanding was a killer. I did the math (n parts x 4 surfaces x 5 grits x 14) and it was about 4,000 surfaces. I made $7/hr, lost my a s s in other words.
Compared to these, they were simple.John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid - John Wayne
Paul,
That is some of the nicest work I have ever seen on the Web.
Wow !! wish i could either afford them, or be good enough to make them !!
Paul, Finally, somebody who feels the same way about doors on TV cabinets! I also question those little flip down fake drawer fronts on keyboard trays. Why bother, it'll never be closed and the hardware is usually a nuisance. Beautiful work, thanks for sharing.
Good post. Useful, down to earth advice.
Is there a similarly systematic way to think about the complexity of the individual pieces? For instance, the piece count on a federal demilune table wouldn't differ that much from a plain rectangular hall table, but the curved apron would take up a lot more time than a straight apron.
Uncle Dunc,
Funny, I was thinking that exact same thought after I posted my comment about the table and chair set and G&G not having a straight line anywhere. A non rectangular part should probably be given the "weight" of ten rectangular parts more or less.
I suppose it would be possible to develop a "complexity index" for evaluating the difficulty of building a piece of furniture. I'll play with the idea sometime, though I suspect that is what any good job estimating system does. Formal systems exist for building construction but I don't know of any system for hand made furniture.
I use my informal rule of thumb as a quick reality check before I too casually describe a piece of furniture as simple or easy to build and then wind up having to justify the cost of building it later on. I never gave much thought to the curve factor because I mostly do Shaker style furniture.
John W.
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