furniture design - Chippendale School of Furniture

Professional, intermediate

Eion Gibbs, who graduated from our professional course in June, was also our first intermediate course student.

He first came to us on our month-long course while recovering from malaria.

He’d been working as a film cameraman on two charitable projects, the Kilimanjaro Project and Trees 4 Kilimanjaro.

Both charities are highlighting the environmental damage that is being done to Africa’s largest mountain, and the surrounding farmers who are affected.

Eion enjoyed the intermediate course so much that it inspired a change of career direction, and a new life as a professional woodworker.

His stand-out piece during his year with us was a monumental piece of furniture standing five feet tall.

“The Shape Shifter Cabinet” contained twenty-two compartments, with most of them being a different size.

Magnet

It comprised three horizontal sections, which were interchangeable, with each compartment being opened by a magnet.

It was therefore a functional and quirky piece of furniture, crafted from Oak, Sycamore, Ash, spalted Beech and Elm.

Its front was decorated in a harlequin triangle pattern fashioned from Ash and Oak. Adding to its charm, it also had secret compartments and a gilded chess set that folded into a drawer.

After graduation, most of our students take a well-earned holiday.

Not so Eion, who had already won his first commission – for an even more monumental piece.

His commission for a shepherd’s hut was for a customer in Southampton. It was to be a surprise 50th birthday present for his client’s wife.

The humble shepherd’s hut, which stands on iron wheels, was once a common sight across much of the country.

Lambing

It allowed shepherds to keep a close eye on their flocks, particularly during lambing season.

But it’s making something of a revival, because it can be put to a whole number of uses – and doesn’t usually need planning permission.

Nowadays, shepherd’s huts are used as garden rooms, spare bedrooms, reading nooks, outdoor gyms, or home offices.

Only recently, former prime minister David Cameron commissioned one to be his writing room.

Eion’s hut was completed with a bed and wood-burning stove. Other shepherd’s hut designs can have a toilet or shower.

The school has a shepherd’s hut on our campus and, underlining their flexibility, it was used last summer as a bedroom for one of our students.

This year it was used as a physiotherapy treatment room, by the girlfriend of one of our professional course students.

Eion’s Douglas Fir hut had tongue-and-groove Pine interior walls, Douglas Fir floor, six windows and double doors.

Eion has set up Belladrum Woodworking and is staying on at the school in incubation space.

These spaces, Myreside Studios, allow graduates to more easily make the transition into professional woodworking.

They have full access to the school’s equipment and, if they have a problem, they can seek help from our tutors.

It’s all part of the school’s holistic approach, giving our students the best tuition and a valuable aftercare package.

We’re delighted that Eion is staying on with us, and we wish him every success.

Note: We still have two vacancies for our professional nine-month course that starts next month.

The value and cost of furniture making

Anselm Fraser, principal, the Chippendale school’s principal, writes in The Woodworker magazine.

Oscar Wilde, the 19^th century playwright, expressed it perfectly.

In his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, he wrote that a cynic is “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Like much of Oscar Wilde’s work, his comedy hides a biting truth. We often consider moral or ethical values as being less important than financial worth. We allow greed to overrule good sense.

It’s an issue that is particularly pertinent for today’s woodworkers. Because the value that we place on a beautifully-crafted piece of furniture may be rather more than a prospective customer is prepared to pay for it.

Yes, it may have taken many, many hours to make, using the finest woods, veneers and delicate inlays. But if that prospective customer is looking for a simple table or chest of drawers, then he or she may be more interested in utility value than financial value.

In other words, spending days and weeks crafting the finest chest of drawers in the whole history of chests of drawers, and placing a huge price tag on it, is no guarantee of a sale.

Sensible price

In a world dominated by IKEA, furniture makers have to look imaginatively at the market, design and build accordingly. Most importantly, always have a sensible price in mind. We may be craftsmen and women, but our valuations have to be pragmatic.

The key concept is value. The painting hanging on our wall may only have aesthetic value, until we discover it’s a Picasso. At that point it acquires huge utility value as a way of paying off the mortgage.

In the same way, good furniture has both utility and aesthetic value. Our wonderful chest of drawers may be aesthetically beautiful but, if the drawers don’t open properly, it lacks utility value.

That balance between form and function is at the heart of all good design, from architecture to fine woodworking. Finding that balance is the first thing that furniture designers should always do. Who am I selling to, and what are the values my customer is looking for?

The fact is, good design must be about both the aesthetic and the utilitarian. If necessary, woodworkers shouldn’t be afraid to compromise, if compromise brings down the cost to an acceptable level.

That budget will be influenced by two things – the cost of materials and the labour costs of designing and making the piece of furniture. It’s a deceptively simple bit of arithmetic: costs + your time = price.

Of course, it’s a little bit more complicated. Costs aren’t just wood and screws. They also include everything from heating to water, local taxes to equipment.

Expectations

It’s a process of determining cost and then building in a reasonable profit margin.

Make something for £10,000 and sell it for £11,800, and your gross profit is £1,800. You will also go out of business rather rapidly.

As a rule, gross margins after direct costs should be in the region of 40-50%.

Generally, improving profit margin should always be a clear and unambiguous business objective. But, equally, you must have realistic expectations about what customers may be prepared to pay.

The problem is that many woodworkers think too highly of themselves. They charge a Rolls-Royce rate, when their customer is looking for a Fiat Uno. (All too infrequently, alas, the opposite can be true!)

Also remember that Pablo Picasso only survived during his early career in Paris by burning most of his paintings to keep warm.

I always advise our students to be pragmatic, certainly until they have built a reputation. There’s no point in graduating from a furniture school and thinking you are immediately a master of the woodworking universe.

That takes time and, in the meantime, it’s better to under-sell rather than not sell. Remember also another line from Lady Windermere’s Fan: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Start low, be sensible and pragmatic, but always aim higher and higher.

Note: A couple of places remain on our professional nine-month course which begins in October. For more information, click here.

Stribh to overcome

Some students come to us straight from school, but many leave it a few years before enrolling at the Chippendale school.

Many feel pressured to go into higher education and then into a job that they find unfulfilling.

That’s when it becomes a choice between the conventional or following their dreams.

We believe at the Chippendale school that you’re never too old, or too young, to choose fine furniture design and making.

One far-flung student on our 2018/19 professional course was Kent Turner, from Washington State in the USA.

He had been looking to make a career change into fine furniture design and making for several years.

Seattle

But for Kent, then working as a builder on an island north of Seattle, a decision finally had to be made.

He therefore came to us knowing something about working with wood, having been building timber frame houses.

But that doesn’t mean that we only take students with prior knowledge of woodworking.

In our experience, some of our best students are those who are complete novices.

What’s important is that students come to us with a thirst for knowledge and the acquisition of skills.

Our nine-month professional course is intensive and we expect students to work hard.

That’s exactly what Kent did, and proved himself to also have very real design and making skills.

Signature

For us, his signature pieces were a pair of funky and quirky chairs.

But, take away the quirkiness and they are also very comfortable.

That balance between form and function is very important in furniture design.

Because it’s all very well designing something with a visual WOW factor, but if it doesn’t perform well it’s a design fail.

Kent called his chairs ‘Stribh and ceannsaich’ which is Scottish Gaelic for ‘struggle and overcome.’

It’s what Kent had to do, in learning his new trade and making his design ideas work.

His chairs were designed around ease of disassembly, held together by Japanese joinery, dowels and wedges.

Sculpted

The feet of Kent’s chairs were made from yew, and the seats and backs from sycamore, with walnut accents.

Those accents were sculpted into one of chairs, where one side of it appeared to be splitting away.

It was a natural fault in the wood and Kent’s solution was to ‘stitch’ the chair back together with walnut strips.

The clever design flourish was to place the walnut strips on different places on each side of the chair, giving the impression of crude sewing.

Kent wanted to put a little of Scotland into his chairs, hence the stribh and ceannsaich name.

But it’s also a reflection of the sheer hard work that went into their creation.

For example, sanding the feet alone took six-and-a-half hours of toil.

However, Kent struggled and eventually overcame.

We wish him every success in his new career.

Iconic Scottish hill redesigned as coffee table

It’s the famous extinct volcano that overlooks Edinburgh, and although nobody knows how it came to be called Arthur’s Seat, it’s said by some to be the site of legendary Camelot.

The 822 foot high hill has been featured in many novels, including Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Underground City by Jules Verne and in several Ian Rankin novels.

But now, one enterprising woodworking student at the Chippendale International School of Furniture has turned Arthur’s Seat into a striking and artistic coffee table.

Paddy O’Neill 32 has made his sycamore and yew table because of his passion for the outdoors and the importance of Ordnance Survey maps for safe navigation.

Paddy, who used to work offshore on oil rigs in the UK, Norway and the USA, was inspired to make his Arthur’s Seat table “because I live in Edinburgh and see it every day.”

He enrolled at the Chippendale school after deciding on a change in career and, following graduation in June, is setting up The Natural Edge, his own woodworking business in Edinburgh to specialise in furniture design, making, and kitchens.

His Arthur’s Seat table is all to scale from Ordnance Survey maps, has a large two-way drawer underneath and, to maximise visual impact, is glass-topped – giving you a bird’s-eye view every time you pick up your coffee cup.

“Everyone has their own special outdoor places, whether it’s a coastline or hill or mountain. I would be delighted to render any of those landscapes into beautiful and functional pieces of furniture,” says Paddy.

Website http://thenaturaledge.co

Scottish parliamentarian visits school

Rachael Hamilton MSP for Scotland South recently visited the Chippendale International School of Furniture, meeting staff and students who this year come from nine different countries.

Earlier this year, Education Scotland published a highly positive report on the school, which has established an international reputation for furniture design, restoration and making.

Among the students she talked to was Paddy O’Neill, a UK student who is making a coffee table featuring a complex wooden rendering of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.

Caption: Anselm Fraser, school principal, Rachel Hamilton MSP, Paddy O’Neill and Tom Fraser, school tutor.

Chippendale students to exhibit at Scottish parliament

Five gifted students from the Chippendale International School of Furniture will be exhibiting their work at the Scottish parliament this summer.

The furniture school, between Haddington and Gifford, is a place of teaching excellence with students coming from around to the world.

This year’s students come from the UK, USA, Austria, Australia, Poland, India, South Korea and Singapore.

The prestigious exhibition in June has been sponsored by Iain Gray MSP.

The five pieces to be exhibited will be chosen at a public exhibition in Edinburgh by Professor Christopher Breward, who is a leading cultural historian.

Professor Breward is also Principal of the Edinburgh College of Art, Vice Principal for the Creative Industries and Performing Arts, and Professor of Cultural History at the University of Edinburgh.

“We are indebted to Iain Gray MSP and honoured that Professor Breward has agreed to choose five students to exhibit at the parliament,” said Anselm Fraser, Principal of the Chippendale International School of Furniture.

Earlier this year, the school was praised by Education Scotland for delivering “high quality learning and teaching….that equips learners well for future employment or self-employment.”