Open House!

Wow!  I can't believe we got it done.  I also can't believe how time flys!  Here it is already May and I haven't even posted about our Open House, now two months behind us!  Since we've opened the doors to the public, we've been pretty slammed.  We were busy to begin with, just doing all the professional business.  Then with all the fanfare and media attention, its been a little overwhelming. Here's a shot of our showroom during the Open House before we really got buzzing..

On the right is none other than Gary Katz.  Gary is the de-facto professor of finish carpentry.  I've learned more from his books and videos than I have from from making mistakes.  Thats saying alot, because I make alot of mistakes.  Gary put on an incredible presentation about ornamentation in carpentry.  It was fascinating, the bits I caught between chatting up the customers, anyway.  I was also real excited to present an opportunity for Jesse Wright, one of our featured carpentry artists, to get to co-host a Katz Roadshow.  Here's a shot of the two of them during the show.

It was a great turnout and everyone enjoyed the show Gary put together for us.  I'd like to express my sincere appreciation to Gary for coming up and presenting as well as the featured carpentry artists that put so much effort into our showroom builds.

First guy to thank, Jesse Wright from Architectural Moldings.  He's got mad skills with design and builds his stuff to the highest degree of craftsmanship.  You can check out his blog at http://www.archmolding.net/.  Here's a shot of Jesse working with his favorite tool.

Another fella who really put in the effort and deserves considerable thanks and mention is Kevin Melvin from Sierra Interior Trim.  Kevin works tirelessly and is one of the fastest finish carpenters I've ever seen.  If you have a job that has to be done 'right now' while maintaining a high degree of craftsmanship,  Kevin is your man.  He doesn't have a website but if you come into the showroom, I'd be happy to flip you his card and point out all the fine details he has his hands on.  Here's a shot of him working the Bosch.

And last but not least in the background of Kevins hero shot is Tim D.  Tim is the propieter of Tim Dennis Construction.  While Tim spends most of his working hours in the framing realm, he's no stranger to artistic builds.  Tim whipped up our reclaimed lumber purgola in short order turning ancient timber into modern art.  You can see this badboy standing proud right out in front of the shop at this very minute.  Here's Tim deep in concentration...

He looks pretty serious there doesn't he?  You shoulda seen the sawdust flying.  There's a ton of other people that deserve mention and credit beginning with my entire staff and family.  Everybody did thier part getting us up and running.  I could never have done it without a single one of you.  I'm so proud of our people  and what we have done in the last year.  Great things await.

Roman Doric Build Continues.

We have been having way more fun building this detail than the definition of 'work' should allow.  There is nothing I love more (besides my family) than building mind blowing architectural details like this one.  Jesse and I have discovered a few awesome techniques and solutions that only doing a build like this would create opportunities to discover.  Check the video Jesse put together there are a few really neat tips and techniques buried in this footage.  Keep in mind this is just a rough cut edit. When we are done, we are going to edit something better to document the build of this detail.



Below is a shot of me assembling the guttae drops.  This is a modollion block up under the cornice that represents the pins that secured the beams (which are represented by the trigliphs) in ancient architecture.  This was a tedious detail to build that took Jesse and I together more than a full day to get together. 

But all that tedious assembly work is worth it in the end.  It's interesting to note another tidbit of fact about the reason the ancient architects used these drops like this.  I read on wikipedia that the guttae drops were commonly used under the cornice not only to represent the pins for the beams but that they also were considered 'rain orginizers', meaning they helped to control where the rain dropped off the structure.  Interesting stuff that I never would have been researching had we not gone this direction with the build.  I've got to hand it to Jesse for that, and this pic below, rain drop organizers or not, these guttae drops look freaking stunning overhead.  Is that a cool detail or what?

The quality of Craftsmanship and attention to both authenticity and detail clearly evident here are representative of the incredible talents of the fine folks at Architectural Moldings and Craftsman Collective Inc.  ( I helped a little )

Showroom Build Begins!

We've been working on converting our old warehouse into our new showroom concept for a few months now.  Most of the work has been painting racking and re-arranging stuff to get our layout optimized.  While that was exciting in it's own right, I'm glad we have it figured out and now behind us.  We are finally beginning the carpentry.  I love building showrooms, this is when you get the opportunity to build stuff you rarely sell, but everyone talks about.   I've been involved with the construction of numerous millwork showrooms, and toured many many more.  I'm taking all that I have learned from what I and everyone else has done in the past and applying that knowledge along with a few ideas I've picked up from successful merchandisers in other industries and folding it all into our 10,000 square foot buildout.  Here's a little sampler of one of the designs now under construction.  This is the concept sketch I whipped up just to show Jesse how my wireless design program works.

This build is an authentic reproduction of a collonade taken from the Roman Doric Order, so there really isn't any design credit here.  However, the success of both it's authenticity and scale is still a formidable challenge.  I'm fortunate to be working with one of the finest craftsmen of our area in Jesse Wright of Architectual Molding.  Jesse is even a bigger geek about this stuff than I am, and a highly (almost too highly) detail oriented builder.   We're both enjoying working together.  It's neat to work with someone that really understand the language of architecture and is passionate about it, like Jesse is.  We spend a little too much time talking it, when we should be more focused on building it but we are both so excited about building something like this that talking about it endlessly is almost a given.    Here's a shot of the entablature in progress,  stay tuned as this stunning detail develops into a reproduction of a bit of historical architecture.