Double the Fun

I find that much of the fun in designing lies within designing furniture for a client or for my studio.  I enjoy researching European designs from the 18th century and applying my spin on its function and form or are some of you form and function?

This is usually a collaborative effort between my imagination and my furniture maker bringing me back to reality.  Not to mention that I have learned a lot about wood.  European trees, although named the same as American trees, do produce a different type of wood in color and grain.  I love it when I read in a book that the wood floor is bleached oak.  Not happening with American oak!  It's way too red, can turn pink if you are not careful and if left to turn on it's own, yuck.  Plus, in all of those books that make it sound like they just found someone to bleach the oak white...well, let me be the first to tell you that in America, you'd be lucky to find a housekeeper to use bleach much less a flooring guy/gal to bleach the floor of an entire house.  I'm pretty sure you would have to take out an added insurance policy along with purchasing gas masks and, that may not do the trick.

  I wish I could have a thousand acres of Euro trees in my back yard to make my design life easier but, husband says no.  Therefore I have a fabulous group of cabinet/furniture builders who get me there despite my hurdles.  What doubles the fun is when good design happens and it becomes an ad. Without my photographer, Sarah Szwajkos and graphic designer, Kristina Harrison another course of "imagination vs. reality" catastrophe scenarios are avoided...actually they are very good at keeping me on course.  I like to call us "Team Chatfield", go team!  I am posting an ad which "took a village to make" of a table I designed.  It looks like bleached oak but, is actually quarter sawn white oak with a stain to make it look "bleached" so it would not turn to the yuck color over time.