Trystcraft

I spent the past week attempting to learn Japanese Joinery with 20 other woodworking nerds in rural Kentucky and it was a blast! With excellent instruction by Jon Billing and masterful insights from Yama san paired with an idyllic setting to camp in, superb food laid on at every meal and a great atmosphere of sharing and support throughout, I’ll definitely be back for another course.

Norman Carver’s 1970 Kaufmann Residence is on the market for 2.4M, apparently priced for its 6.3 acre lot. It has some nice classic Carver features including the wood grille at entry, built in seating by the fireplace and lots of natural light. Listing

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1000-Carolee-Ln-Kalamazoo-MI-49008/120457050_zpid/

Routinely misattributed to Vladimir Kagan, it was nice to find this cocktail table was actually designed by Joanne Burke for Mil Mode as seen in the 1961 catalog. The collection took not so subtle inspiration from other designers including Noguchi and Harvey Probber.

It’s not every day you get a package from Lithuania containing a 1961 issue of the New Homes Guide you read about in a letter to the architect from 1963 so you’ve been hunting it for a year and managed to find one for sale on a Lithuanian Facebook group for old books using a screen cap of the cover and Google’s image search and so you use Google translate to ask the very kind lady in Kaunas if she would be able to mail it to the United States…and she does.

Well today was that day!

What’s even more amazing is she said she only put it online halfheartedly and was going to throw it away in the next couple of days before I got in touch.

Good people and technology for the win!

New coffee table for the living room: George Nakashima freeform design from his Widdicomb Origins collection. (Photos 5&6):The shape always reminds me of the Kukri knives of Nepal and surrounding regions, probably an influence on Nakashima during his time practicing architecture in India. I found this Kukri inside an old George Nelson headboard a couple years ago- possibly the most interesting object I’ve found inside old furniture!

Newest project: making this Carver style room divider between the dining and living rooms from lumber repurposed from the roof restoration. I’d always loved the screen dividers (or grilles as Norm called them), and the original plans had a small grille on the left side of this room by the entry so it had been on my mind. The room was great but just too long -54 feet from end to end. Placed here, the filtering effect of the screen really helps define the areas better and contrary to the popular trend of opening everything up, the delineation makes both spaces actually feel bigger and helps you focus on each of them without being overwhelmed. I’m really happy with how it turned out, especially seeing the light and shadow effects through the day and the character of the stained 70s wood.

Morning light in Kalamazoo.

New favorite view at the Carver house. Looking north from the original living room towards the addition, this view shows the built in light fixture that runs the entire width of the dining area and entry, occupying the space that was originally the exterior roof overhang. You can also see the bench at the top of the stairs going down to the basement and the hallway to the bedrooms at left. I removed the closets that had been added when the living room was converted into the primary bedroom, deliberately emphasizing the built up post to the right of the photo.