Coming to a bookstore near you ....

Coming this summer I will have a piece in a new Lark Publishing book titled "500 Cabinets". This is the latest in Lark's "500" series of books. Formerly, I have had my original designs appear in their "500 Tables" and "500 Chairs" books. My work can also be seen in Taunton Press's "Design Book Eight", which came out last year.

A Place for Everything....

This past week I finally finished the closet system I designed as part of our master bath remodel. I have to credit our friend Shannon Kaye, of DIY Network fame, with the inspiration for this. We started out with a basic builder's closet that had been covered by a full width curtain (which replaced the '70s mirrored sliding doors it started with). But as part of a reconfiguration for remodeling the master bath, the closet was moved a couple of feet and reduced in width by a foot. The big dilemma was what to do with the eight foot tall closet to give complete access without having to put back another set of massive doors. When Shannon was here giving us paint color advice we were talking about it and she suggested we make more of a multi-function built-in rather than a traditional style closet. That turned out to be just the creative spark we needed. The real key to making this design work is the wardrobe pull-down hardware from Halefe - it allows hanger rods to be placed far up at the top of the space which would normally be way out of reach, and then swing down for easy access. That allowed room for lots of drawer space underneath. Other features include a pull-out ironing board (also from Hafele) and slide-out pants hanging rod which was built on site.

"Before".....

The completed design ...

Some of the features ..... slide out pant hanger (L), pullout ironing board (M), and wardrobe pull-down (R).

The Finished Bench

Well, after a few coats of oil/varnish mixture and some good furniture wax, the bench looks pretty good. Now it goes to the client to help them welcome guests as they enter their home. I hope they like it.