A Design Question

[barbsiddiqui]

On another forum, I was involved in a long discussion on learning to design one's own furniture pieces, and I'd like to introduce the subject here and see what 'brainstorming' ideas and opinions we can come up with. Please don't anyone hold back, but let's get some free flowing ideas going here, no matter what your level of experience.
If you decided you wanted to create an original piece of furniture for your own home, not necessarily to sell, how would you go about it? Would you study historical designs, or build something to fit an existing space? Would you want to follow in the footsteps of famous designers, or do you think you could come up with something truly original? Would you stick to joinery methods and techniques you already knew and had mastered, or design the piece and learn to do what was needed as the design required it? Who here has created original furniture design? What problems did you encounter in doing so? Anyone else who wants to ask a question on design, throw it in the hat! -Barb S.

[cricket]

well, we normally stick with what we know. but my husband is always liiking at new and different way of building and joinery.
we haven't done much as far as furniture, built my mother a narrow chest of drawers to fit in the only place it would go[looks more like a filing cabinet,lol.]

[pampine]

I start sketching with paper and pencil, apply measurements, make changes and/or corrections as the piece is built. That's it. I'm no longer willing to try to explain the creative process, have decided it's an impossible task.

Pam

[cricket]

my husband does that to me,lol. tells me to watch and learn because he is tired of trying to tell me how to do something over and over.......lol.

[Johanna]

Everything for our home has been an original design. There are very few plans for pieces that look good in our "adobe hacienda". Commercial plans for "Southwest furniture" tend to be of the "nail it together" variety.

I study plans for mission and Shaker furniture for structural details. I look at furniture in galleries in Santa Fe (it makes gallery owners nervous when you lie down on the floor so you can see the bottom of a piece!) I look at the two books on Southwestern design that I have and at the ads and articles in the New Mexico magazine.

Once I have a general idea of where I'm going, I start sketching in CAD. I like using CAD because the measurements are exact.

At the moment, I am in the process of designing a cabinet headboard for our bed. Because this was an unexpected and rush job, I simply built a very plain bottom cabinet that will support a top. This came about because our waterbed sprung a seam leak. We decided to get one of the new frameless waterbeds, but that meant a new headboard. We bought the bed last Saturday; it will be delivered this coming Tuesday.

The bottom cabinet is a big box: 74" x 26" x 12". Oak plywood with solid oak frames and doors on either end. Easy to build, except that it is so big. This base will support a 74" x 22" top.

Features we are working on for the top include: a hinged-lid compartment on each side that slants back slightly so it will support a pillow for reading in bed, lighting for reading, a center section that features a beautiful stained glass panel depicting the area near Georgia O'Keefe's home, lighting behind the panel so it shows up, wiring for phone and alarm clocks, places to rest coffee cups, places to put books and other stuff.

All this in a design that harmonizes with the rest of the house and with the dressers I'm going to build "someday". I have some rough sketches in CAD, but they need quite a bit more work.

Now, you experts out there: one of the things that needs to be resolved for this project is how to attach the top to the base. The top of the base is 3/4" oak plywood. The bottom of the top will be a 3/4" or 1" thick piece of solid oak. I have seen some plans that showed two vertical boards screwed to the top and bottom. My original idea was to bolt the top to the bottom and cover the head of the bolt with a plug. Anyone have some ideas for this?

Thanks, Barb, for getting this started -- I hope it generates some good ideas.

[pampine]

Hmmm, that's not what I intended to say. Creativity, IMO, is impossible to explain; and any attempt to do so is, by definition, limited. One of those "You can't understand this until you do it" things. And the way you get to the point of doing it is to make things.

Pam

[barbsiddiqui]

"I start sketching with paper and pencil, apply measurements, make changes and/or corrections as the piece is built. That's it."

'Creativity' has been defined and redefined ad infinitum, ad nauseum.....but I have a more nuts and bolts question for you: when you begin sketching a new design, at what point do you decide the drawings are leading no further, and "that's enough....time to get started?" And do you let the drawings go wild, with any nonsense sketching that comes into your head, or are you consciously limiting yourself as to desired factors and measurements? I guess what I mean is, do you already have a conscious decision in your head before you begin sketching ideas for it, or do you let the pencil flow in a cathartic sweep of dozens of intuitive alternatives?

[barbsiddiqui]

"Once I have a general idea of where I'm going, I start sketching in CAD. I like using CAD because the measurements are exact."
I've no experience with CAD drawings, but doesn't using a computer program limit the free forming of ideas? Aren't you selecting from "pile this box onto that box, or insert an opening here..." sort of thing?
As to your headboard problem, what I'm seeing of your description is a base unit and a top unit, both 74" wide to accomodate the width of the new bed, totally standing about 48" tall, but only 12" deep. Stability, it would seem, is going to be a problem. You can secure the top to the base unit, as you planned, but you know what? I'd also secure the top unit to the wall studs. Immovable, I know, but at only 12" deep, it certainly seems a necessity. You might consider going deeper with the whole thing, to accomodate your slanted pillow-support headboards, with storage behind.
This is designing of necessity! This is probably how 90% of all furniture design takes place, in the designer asking first, "what is needed here?"

[Johanna]

>>
I've no experience with CAD drawings, but doesn't using a computer program limit the free forming of ideas? Aren't you selecting from "pile this box onto that box, or insert an opening here..." sort of thing?
>>

I don't know about other CAD programs, but this one (QuickCAD) lets you draw straight lines, curved lines, irregular lines, angles, circles -- anything you want. The difference between drawing it in the CAD program and drawing it on lined paper is that I can copy and paste parts that are repeated, check measurements precisely, make changes easily and many more advantages. I suppose it could best be compared with composing written work on a manual typewriter versus composing it in a word processor.

Sorry, I did not mention attaching it to the wall -- yes, I may do just that. The current headboard, though, is simply attached to the frame of the waterbed. The base will be wedged between the bed platform and the wall, so it will not tip. That is why I considered just attaching the top to the base.

[pampine]

Yes, attempts at defining creativity and the creative process have been made; but I think they are inadequate, for precisely the reason implied in your next questions. How do you know when a painting is done? When a building design is finished? When a piece of furniture is complete and a bit more will ruin it? When a song is perfect?

My partial answer is that part of the answer is when the artist sees that the piece is saying everything s/he intended to say. Or when taken a step further doesn't look/sound right, and the artist goes back a step and tries again. Or when the artist is getting nowhere on paper and decides to start trying stuff, which is when the artist maybe makes a model. There are just too many elements that comprise the final piece to include them all in the design. For example, how can you design for the "accident" of a plane stroke? Or how the grain will actually look? These are not tasks that CAD is good at because they are irregular, almost random.

I suppose my designs are informed by all the furniture I've seen, what I've made and/or designed, the size required, the functional needs of a piece, and what I'm able to do. Then when I run into dead ends in the design, it's as perfect as I can make it, I take the process into models and/or start building the piece itself.

When is the piece properly balanced and proportioned? When it looks right.

However, first thing I start worrying about is joinery, how I'll actually build this piece, whether I'll use M&T; and, if M&T, blind or through, and how will that decision affect the look. Do I do blind dovetails, half blind, or exposed? Do I want the joints between boards to be visible or not? What kind(s) of wood do I have and/or can use? How will that affect the piece. And on it goes. The devil is in the details.

Pam