salt and wood

1. Chalk board.

2.Folded.

3. Up.

4.In action. Chop.

So you have a smallish house and courtyard with a dog and three kids but you need a workstation to do you crafty nick nacking at. Something at a good height so you are not busting your back and with a good-sized worktop but without sacrificing any of you usable deck area for kids play and bigger parties?

And so the Chalk and Chop came about. Made from all found timber except the flat top that is a cut of painted ply. Some structural framing was added under the flat top to stiffen it and the piece under the front edge has holes bored in it to take the top of the cut down wooden broom handles (street found) the base of these pull out legs has a screw in it that sits in a hole in the deck making it impossible to knock the legs out. The real beauty of this system is that the very lightweight pull out legs are perfectly sufficient because of their high compressive strength and the top board being fixed in three places by hinges of the timber wall ledger.  As you can see when it is folded down the skinny legs just sit on top held by the hinge backs and the worktop becomes a chalkboard. Apart from a workbench it has turned out to be a very handy standing height BBQ serve your self food set out area.

The Mantry or Man Pantry is what happens when your bits don’t fit behind the laundry door and you have to trade off against available useable courtyard. It’s a walk up shed. And it has proven very effective in serving its purpose and as a complimentary item to ITEM 11 Chalk and Chop. The entire shelf system and structure of the shell is comprised of timber found in the street or skips including the deck extension that forms the base. Only the final cladding of thin ply was purchased and painted.The artwork on the base of the door is by my son. The brief was to paint his interpretation of the stories I have told him from the year i lived in Africa. It got pretty weird.

Recycled timber sculpture

2.

3.

4. The goods.

This is a street found box base (I am assuming Snow Goose was a wine?) I cleaned it and spray painted the inside orange then simply cut down a separate piece of found plywood, drilled out a finger slide hole and painted the blue and white top. This fitted the existing slide slots from a past-lost lid. Voila drawing box.

1. Colour.

2. Proportion.

3. Starboard.

4. Port.

5. The real SS Minnow.

This is a simple compilation of three found objects into a kitsch little shelf sculpture. All I did was drilled two holes and white painted the piece of driftwood to make it look like a hull. For me the colours are the most pleasing aspect of this piece. Though the weighting and proportions work well too.

 SS Minnow? Anyone who grew up watching Gilligan’s island will understand

1. Front view.

2. Side.

3. Shelf detail.

4. Top detail.

5. Base.

6. Shelf detail.

7. Base detail.

8. Base close up.

9. Vertical wax detail.

10. Wax and jointing detail.

This was an old broken drawer found in the street that has had a range of different driftwood components worked into this Bauhausian protruding shelf arrangement. The vertical plywood component had some holes drilled in it when found. This worked well as a foil to the random offset rectangles created by the shelf set out. I had clamped some of the timber to work it before sanding it and the clamps left circular impressions that preserved the paint in these areas to pleasing effect. The inside shell was painted with white house paint and all the odd little holes were filled with coloured wax and scraped flat prior to varnishing. The top of the unit bears the marks of the long gone drawer handle and even a long gone makeshift replacement. The base fascia board looks like it has come off a boat. And had been in the sea for some time. The metal fittings left there black reactive stains that worked perfectly with the coloured wax fill and the orange grain of the timber as i cut it back. The unit is all varnished with a satin varnish except the base fascia in a high gloss varnish to focus attention on this stunning piece of flotsam.

1. Ends cut square

2. Stoppers to base

3. End

4. Colour and history

5. At work

6. Colour, history and grain

This was an easily overlooked bit of flotsam washed up south of Sydney. The ends had a stepped cut that suggested it was the lid or top of something on a boat. The timber was very pale in colour and lite in weight. All I did was cut the ends off clean and sand it all back, varnish it and screw some little stoppers under it. The surface is covered in a poetic history of nicks and depressions. The most interesting and still inexplicable thing was that when a coat of clear varnish was added to this pale timber the whole thing turned this handsome chocolate red colour. The  long sides are rounded by its time at see and it is now working as a condiments board on the kitchen table.

1. Half double varnished bulls eye.

2. The unit.

3. Detail.

4. The unit.

5. The unit.

Bulls Eye was a simple composition with two drawer faces forming the side walls with the back of one of them being re used as the middle shelf. A bit of half double sanding and varnish and voila you have this beautiful two tone bulls eye detail where the old doughnut carved handle retains some of the old varnish. The middle shelf was nailed through the recess of the handle and the internal surface finished with a lick of white house paint. I am not sure what type of timber the drawer faces are? This item became a bathroom sink shelf.