fbpx
Making a contemporary four poster bed Making a contemporary four poster bed
  • About Us
    • School Life
    • Qualifications
    • Testimonials
    • Meet The Team
    • Myreside Studios
    • Fine Furniture Guild
  • Graduate Exhibition
    • Graduate Exhibition 2022
    • Graduate Exhibition 2021
    • Graduate Exhibition 2020
  • Furniture Making Courses
    • 30-week Course
    • 1-week Courses
    • 4-week Course
    • Weekend Courses
  • Apply
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • School Life
    • Qualifications
    • Testimonials
    • Meet The Team
    • Myreside Studios
    • Fine Furniture Guild
  • Graduate Exhibition
    • Graduate Exhibition 2022
    • Graduate Exhibition 2021
    • Graduate Exhibition 2020
  • Furniture Making Courses
    • 30-week Course
    • 1-week Courses
    • 4-week Course
    • Weekend Courses
  • Apply
  • News
  • Contact Us

furniture restoration

Making a contemporary four poster bed

Quentin Dimmer's stunning, modern four poster bed.

Quentin Dimmer's stunning, modern four poster bed.

A blog by Quentin Dimmer of Ghillie Dhu Furniture who graduated from the Chippendale International School of Furniture in 2011. While there Quentin won the students’ Best Design Award for his piece ‘A story teller’s chair – the Viking’s rocker’.

“I got the idea for making the four poster bed from a local antique dealer and friend of the family who suggested I make a four poster as they tend to sell well. I want to continue to make furniture that will eventually furnish an entire house.

“Anyway, I did some research; I really liked the Venetian style of four poster so I started playing on that theme to come up with my own interpretation. I noticed all the four posters I could find were made in dark woods like mahogany and ebonised woods so I wanted to make one in a lighter coloured wood to make it more contemporary.

“I chose birch for the posts as it symbolises fertility and sycamore for the frame and headboard. The wooden candle flames at the top of the posts is to symbolise passion, and the Celtic knotwork headboard is to symbolise love.

“I worked with a tree surgeon for a day and at the sawmill for a day to get the sycamore planked. For the birch, I have an agreement with a local landowner that I can take small amounts of timber from his land in return for helping to manage his woodlands. I aim to manage the woodlands for continual cover and encourage the production of high quality hardwood timber in the longer term. Because I used green timber for the posts, I let it season at home.

“I may take the bed to an exhibition in Aberdeen in September.”

Ghillie Dhu Furniture’s services include furniture design, making and antique restoration. He aims to “make furniture as art”. Using tree surgery skills Quentin also offers an opportunity to have fine or garden furniture made from a tree on your own land.

Read More

I’ve made my bed

Melinda & her 'enter the forest of dreams bed'

Melinda & her 'enter the forest of dreams bed'

Melinda Schwakhofer, who graduated from The Chippendale International School of Furniture in 1999, built this bed as her final project on the furniture design, furniture making and furniture restoration course.

Melinda, who is now a fibre artist, created the headboard art quilt at the same time as the bed, which she calls ‘Enter the Forest of Dreams’. The bed quilt was created in 2012.

Melinda says:

“This bed represents a journey from a time when I was still looking for a place called home to a time when I have found it. I’ve built a lot of the story of that journey into the quilts that complete the bed I made at the furniture school.”

The bed is due to be displayed at the International Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham from 16th to 19th August this year.

Melinda continues:

“The bed is made from wood found in the drying shed, either olive ash or elm.

“I made a full-size paper pattern, traced it onto the wood and used a bandsaw to shape most of the branches. We joined the branches with half-lapped joints, then I spent hours with wood files and sandpaper to shape and smooth them. The branches were morticed and tenonned into the surrounding frame and I think we used some Bondo at one point. Anything to make it work!

enter-the-forest-of-dreams_bed-on-own_blog1“I had brought a French Provincial bed over from America. We cannibalized the mattress support rails and the metal rods hidden in the base of the bed posts which they hooked over, then integrated them into the new bed frame.

“I faxed my quilt pattern and colorway to my friend in California and she bought and posted the fabric to me. I used some sheer yellow fabric from John Lewis for the sunbeam shining onto the glade. It was my first time using a sheer fabric and I felt quite excited about it!

“I dyed a duvet cover with Procion dyes and used walnut wood stain on the valance.”

You can contact Melinda via:

Website: www.melindaschwakhofer.com
Blog: www.inspiraculum.co.uk
Email: Schwakhofer@gmail.com

Thanks are due to Scottish photographer Derek Ramage for the photographs. www.derekramagephotography.co.uk

Read More

Learning the skilled techniques of furniture restoration

Restoring the table from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh

Restoring the table from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh

A conversation with Simon Macintyre, a specialist tutor in fine furniture restoration who runs his own restoration business in West Sussex in England.

Simon Macintyre is one of the visiting external tutors at the Chippendale International School of Furniture. He teaches the skilled techniques involved in fine furniture restoration for a week in the first term and a second week in the third term.

“Learning about furniture restoration allows the students to relive the experience of furniture making over the last 400 years”, Simon says. “The furniture students learn the principles of good furniture construction and are shown how, unfortunately, style can sometimes triumph over function.

“I love teaching the students here. We all worked on restoring a large round table from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh: this involved various veneer and carcass repairs and laying a large leather top. It’s a steep learning curve but most students rise spectacularly to the challenges and grow demonstrably during the furniture restoration course.

“We’ve also restored chests of drawers, card tables, long case clocks, bureaux and dining room chairs (which tend to take a lot of daily punishment!). The students can be quite reserved initially but they really get into it by the end of the furniture restoration course.”

The dilapidated table before its restoration.

The dilapidated table before its restoration.

Simon thinks that the “Furniture School works very well. The furniture course has an extremely well structured programme. The students know what to expect each week, and the pastoral care is also good; the students get help with finding accommodation, and Izzy helps them integrate with the local community, encouraging them to go to ceilidhs and other events.”

Simon trained with Anselm Fraser, the furniture school Principal, in 1981-82. His workshop is in the Norfolk Estate’s village joiner’s shop in Arundel. The Duke of Norfolk leads one of England’s best known Catholic dynasties with a lineage going all the way back to 1066 and the Norman Conquest.

Simon works on private furniture restoration commissions as well as for the antique trade. His famous clients have included: rock musician Brian Ferry; the sculptor Philip Jackson, well known for creating seven big bronze bomber crew statues for St James’s Park in London; the Benson family, founders of Kleinwort Benson fame; and the Bonham Carters, who number Hollywood star Helen Bonham Carter.

The furniture restorer’s projects are mostly 17th, 18th and 19th century English furniture, including Chippendale Furniture, although they have also spanned rare Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture. He particularly likes Queen Anne furniture and the simplicity of early Georgian pieces, which he describes as “quintessential English furniture”.

Simon says that “the quality of the materials used for making furniture has fallen steadily over the centuries. Wood which is currently commercially available, might still have the same name, as with  ‘mahogany’ for example, but that’s where the similarity ends. I have to source 30 different species of tropical hard woods and veneers, many of which are now protected and commercially unavailable, so have to be continually on the look out for rare hardwoods; I recently managed to track down a trunk of 100 year old rosewood in a garage in the Channel Islands.

“The furniture restoration techniques I use have to be a lot less mechanised than at the school. Most of the restoration work has to be done with high quality hand tools made of decent steel with sharp edges. Modern tools are often sub-standard.

“I work with the original style of the piece and try to get inside the craftsman’s head. Projects often involve repairing damaged veneers and renewing old polish finishes.

“I once restored a case for a bracket clock made by England’s foremost clockmaker, Thomas Tompian, worth a quarter of a million pounds. Another interesting piece was a Guernsey tea table which had been wrecked by occupying German troops during the Second World War.”

Thomas Tompian bracket clock

Thomas Tompian bracket clock

Returning to his furniture restoration courses at the school, Simon Macintyre says:

“I teach the furniture school students the correct restoration procedures. To avoid devaluing a piece of antique furniture, they need to understand it before starting work. Undoing the poor restoration work done by others is the bane of a furniture restorer’s life; you can find nails or screws in loose joints that have caused a lot of damage, and other poor quality repairs.

“The students learn how to be exacting with their estimates and about the importance of developing good client relationships. They have to learn to consult and talk through issues that emerge. I teach them not to lower their commission prices too much so they can afford to do a good job without cutting corners.

“I give talks on the different furniture styles and features for particular periods. The students get a good grounding of knowledge and go on to learn by experience.

“Many of the students keep in touch with me after I’ve headed back south.”

Simon Macintyre can be contacted at macintyre641@aol.com or on 01903 883387.

Read More

Anselm & Chippendale School of Furniture on Antiques Uncovered on BBC2

Dr Lucy Worsley meets Anselm Fraser and learns how to make a Thomas Chippendale chair leg at the Chippendale International School of Furniture.

She describes the great craftsman’s famous Director as “like an Ikea catalogue” and sees a Chippendale chair worth a £1 million.

At the Furniture School, historian Dr Lucy Worsley has a shot at making a Chippendale chair leg in the School’s workshop using traditional methods with a little help from Anselm. Apparently the mahogany may have been used as ballast in slave ships in Georgian times.

Anselm goes on to make some glue in the traditional method by heating it with a candle (apparently the apprentice would have had to pee in the glue pot to make the mixture sticky!).

You can see the programme on the BBC iPlayer (8pm on 2.5.12). Fast forward to 15 minutes into the programme when Chippendale furniture is introduced, and you can see Anselm and the Chippendale School of Furniture between 18 and 22 minutes into the programme.  Go to this link to see the programme on BBC iPlayer (it’s at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01hbmsp/Antiques_Uncovered_Entertainment/ if link does not work).

Read More

Armed Forces Grant of up to £2,000 towards Chippendale School of Furniture Fees

Lt Col Guy Harnby is now a Chippendale Furniture student.

Lt Col Guy Harnby is now a Chippendale Furniture student.

UK service men and women from the Army, Navy and RAF may now qualify for a grant of £1,000 to £2,000 towards their Chippendale International School of Furniture fees, because the Furniture School is now an Approved Learning Provider under the MOD’s Enhanced Learning Credit (ELC) Scheme.

“I’m looking forward to inviting more retired or redundant members of the Armed Forces onto our 9 month furniture making course,” says Anselm Fraser, the Furniture School Principal.

“Our course is very practical and is particularly geared towards setting up furniture making businesses so it opens up serious options for new careers. Many students use our course to set up their own furniture businesses, and some stay on after graduation, basing themselves in our Chippendale Incubation Centre. This helps get their new businesses off the ground on low cost rents while they continue to benefit from our facilities, support and guidance.”

Lieutenant Colonel Guy Harnby, a recently retired army officer, is one of the Chippendale School of Furniture’s current students. He describes how he heard of the furniture making course:

“A friend and neighbour, Stuart Janion, was a student at the School about 8 years ago and he thoroughly enjoyed doing the projects he undertook.

“Having spent nearly 30 years as a soldier, the idea of making and designing furniture offered some new and exciting challenges.”

Guy outlined his longer term ambitions:

“I have spent the past year actively involved in the Casualty Management area of wounded soldiers returning from the conflict in Afghanistan, and in the recovery of injured and sick soldiers.  I have set up a charity called Wood for Wounded with a view to establishing a furniture school in the Lake District in 17 months time.

“I want to get involved in reintegrating sick, injured and wounded soldiers into society through the medium of wood and furniture making, and have a number of ideas to take the idea forward in the next 5 years!”

All UK Armed Forces recruits can register for the Enhanced Learning Credit Scheme during their first year of service, or between eight and eight and a half years after joining the forces. Before being allowed to make an ELC claim at the lower level (of up to £1,000), an individual must have had at least four years’ service.  He or she must have completed a minimum of eight years’ service before being able to claim at the higher rate (of up to £2,000). Claims can be made up to ten years after leaving the Services.

Only one ELC claim can be made in any one financial year (April to March). Individuals must pay for at least 20% of the cost of the course. The ELC element excludes travel, accommodation, food, books and materials.

Call the School on (44) 0 1620 810680 or go to the Enhanced Learning Credits website for more details on the application process. A full explanation of ELC is also given in the Joint Service Publication (JSP) 898, Part 4, Chapter 3.

Read More

The Strategy of Creativity

anselm-fraser-chess-set_web

Chippendale School of Furniture’s Anselm Fraser fuses big sky thinking with commercial savvy

Main part of a feature published in Good Woodworking in Growth Rings in October 2011. Reproduced with thanks. Words: Darren Loucaides. Photos: Dave Roberts.

As mist settles on the hills surrounding this secluded spot in Gifford, 25 miles east of Edinburgh, it feels like we’ve happened upon a deserted country house. Chippendale International School of Furniture is out for summer, and stalking around its exhibition hall, quiet but for our footfall thundering across the rugged floorboards, the atmosphere is eerie. Perhaps we’re hearing distant echoes, glimpses of movement just beyond our vision – hints of the life that usually fills the place.

The various wooden creations, like stage props solemnly awaiting their moment in the limelight, only add to the feeling: there’s an Art Deco dressing table, an unfinished rocking horse, a solid all-burr dining table, and a grand chair you’d expect to find nestled deep within the boughs of a magical forest (but is actually destined for the Edinburgh Book Festival). You wonder what kind of curriculum could spawn such an eclectic mix of furniture.

chippendale_056-web

The answer lies with Anselm Fraser, Chippendale’s Principal and founder, who appears before us like the house’s enigmatic phantom. He’s wearing odd boots – one blue, the other gold – and string braces decorated with metal leaves, which provide a handy ‘in’ for understanding the man: on the one hand, they’re a symptom of someone who doesn’t mind being thought eccentric; on the other hand, they’re a marketing tool that easily identifies him. All the people we’ll meet over the coming months during our northern adventures will recognise Anselm – “You know, the chap with the blue and gold boots, and the funny braces” – and have heard something of his distinctive approach. He’s a showman and an entrepreneur, a craftsman and a pragmatist.

You can read The Strategy of Creativity from Good Woodworking here.

This unique mix – Anselm’s very spirit – lies at the very heart of the School. For £16,950 it provides an intense 30-week crash course in furniture making, but also commercial nous: “This is a business school,” Anselm says, “not just a furniture school.” And yet, as is evidenced by the work all around us, the students are also receiving a potent creative stimulus. This is a place for big sky-thinking inspired by the wide horizons of the location
itself…an idyllic base from which to plot your next move.

Oil rigger, egg trader, woodworker

It was a bit of big-sky thinking, fused with realpolitik, that led Anselm to purchase these former Myreside farmsteads for £100,000 back in 1992. He’d realised that, instead of breaking the bank buying a listed building that would serve as a country home and furniture school, he could fashion his own for a much better price.

Anselm Fraser's house & the School of Furniture

Anselm Fraser’s house & the School of Furniture

Before this, though, Anselm had tried his hand at a number of occupations, ranging from a stint in the North Sea on the Brent Delta oil rig to egg marketing in the East Midlands. It was his dairy enterprise that revealed his knack for business: he managed to reduce his storage overheads to almost nothing by seeking out farmers with empty outbuildings. It wasn’t long, however, before the big boys were on to him: a national supplier waged a price war and eventually ran him out of town, but during his two years of trading, he’d generated enough capital for his next venture.

“With the next business,” Anselm explains, “I decided that I didn’t want to make a huge profit: that’s when people come after you, and I’m never going to let that happen again.” He turned his hand to woodworking, partly because, “it’s what I’d always wanted to do,” and partly because it’s difficult to make a living as a woodworker: “I was confident I wasn’t going to be wiped out by a rival, either. After 30 years this has proved to be true.”

He trained with antique furniture restorer Michael Hay-Will for one year, after which, “Off I went with my chisel and my brain,” and started his own business. Initially he concentrated on restoring, but as the market shrank, he started making furniture too. When Michael, his former tutor, died, another avenue presented itself to Anselm – teaching: “His wife simply said, ‘We have a student, can you help?’” Anselm agreed, and from this unexpected acorn grew the Anselm Fraser School of Antique Furniture Restoration, which would later evolve into the Myreside School of Furniture as Anselm began to focus more on furniture making.

Build it…

It was years before the school became a main priority, however; apart from furniture, Anselm was diversifying into property renovation and building projects. He would, and still does, cast his keen eye around for decrepit buildings to pounce on, which he’ll completely overhaul into grand houses like his own. He’s been making swoops far beyond the UK, too, with recent trips to Switzerland to work on wood cabins, and even building a school in Malawi.

You can see the imagination that he brings to this kind of work if you look at his own house. We find his woodwork covering almost every square inch. It’s neither conventional in an interior design sense, nor perfect from a
cabinetmaking point of view, but it’s full of character and charming idiosyncrasy. A house, he’s saying, isn’t just a house but a canvas for experimentation. Apart from the reverse moulds, he made faux stonework from
concrete for the doors, windows, and balustrades, made the floors from local timber that would’ve gone for firewood; there’s furniture made in the round; the kitchen reminds us of Bilbo Baggins’ Bag End (only rather bigger); there’s his ‘Harry Potter’ bed largely made from bark-on branches… “There’s one of my paintings,” he says, pointing at a canvas with steam-bent strips bursting out of it, or, elsewhere, a framed explosion of off-cuts
and paint. It’s all slightly bonkers, but it makes for a wonderfully experimental atmosphere.

Anselm Fraser, School Principal

Anselm Fraser, School Principal

This former farmstead, then, has evolved into a kind of creative outpost which now attracts students from around the globe looking to cross the boundaries of a typical woodwork course. This hasn’t happened over night, though.

…and they will come

By 2000, the house was for all intents and purposes ‘complete’, and Anselm was ready to expand after 15 years of training people on a more ad hoc basis. His first step was to find out whether he could rename it the  Chippendale International School of Furniture.

“I spoke to the lawyers,” he says, “and they asked if I had international students, which I did,” and, with no copyright on the name, he went for it. The rebranding exercise has certainly helped Anselm in his efforts to build up the School and its reputation in recent years.

The school only took on five to 10 students while it found its feet, he explains, but now it’s reached critical mass with 20 students and 10 ‘incubators’ – former students who’ve stayed on to rent workshop space. He was also fully subscribed for next year back in May. Anselm doesn’t want it to expand any further, though, as the current size allows him to impart a healthy amount of his peculiar wisdom to each student. And keeping the numbers will mean that plenty of the students can continue to stay on as incubators.

What’s the magic formula, then, that has made the School so popular? It’s the two pronged approach, as we said at the start, of providing both making and business skills.

Building a craftsman

The course is 30 weeks long, and leaves students with a furniture making qualification and cabinet making qualification recognised by the Scottish Education Authority. “For the first two terms we have five tutors looking over 20 students,” says Anselm. “We work through a syllabus [approved by the SEA], and they’re taught to work to time tests.” He firmly believes that pushing students to work quickly is fundamental: “The trouble with setting up a business because you love woodwork is that you’re never going to make any money,” he argues. This isn’t to say that students are rushed along before they’re ready: “The biggest challenge is the first two weeks of the course,” he explains. “During this time you have to make them go slow like a tortoise; if you go fast like a hare, you have accidents.”

The students make a minimum of three pieces, including a traditional piece and a modern piece, though they are strongly encouraged to produce more.

“Quite early on, we get them to design something of their own,” Anselm says. “We want them to be great designers, and we think carefully about how to develop and expand them towards that aim.”

Business and pleasure

anselem-laughing-web

But alongside this practical course is that dynamic guidance given on how to make a living after the course.

“We teach them not to drop their old skills,” says Anselm, who believes it’s crucial that you utilise the full spectrum of your abilities, not just your woodworking talents.

“To make a living as a furniture maker, it’s going to be very lean for the first few years,” he says. “Don’t throw away your talents. Don’t come to me and say you’re only going to do furniture; you’ll starve…”

If you’re a taxi driver, for instance, Anselm will insist that you keep working your busiest hours and fit your woodworking into the quiet times, at least while you get started. “If you have no other talents, we’ll find something for you!”

His favourite word of advice is “diversify”: aside from using skills accumulated before coming here, he steers them towards other woodwork like restoration and house refits, like he does. The idea is to take pleasure in your making — “That’s why you go into woodwork,” Anselm says, “because you want to enjoy your work” — but to keep several streams of income going.

With such a head for business, it’s perhaps not surprising that Anselm feels embattled by some of the attitudes in the fine woodworking world: learning how to sharpen tools to within a thousanth of a millimetre, say, or perfecting seamless joints may be appealing, but they’ll probably lead you into financial ruin if you’re not careful.

“Have gaps in your dovetails!” Anselm cries. “They’re good to see,” which may seem like an odd thing to say, but the essential point carries weight: it’s far better to survive and create exciting furniture to a decent standard
than to risk everything in the so-called pursuit of excellence.

A way of thinking

When students pay £16,950 for a 30-week course, then, they’re buying into a way of thinking through Anselm. It’s his philosophy and character that make this much more than a furniture making school. Chippendale is a centre of craftsmanship and business sense, but also a breeding ground for ideas; a space within which to grow the confidence and ambition needed to be truly creative, but from where you can see the bigger picture, too. No wonder so many of the graduates are keen to rent space and join the Chippendale Incubation Centre unit: apart from securing access to well-maintained machinery and avoiding start-up costs, not to mention benefiting from the big sky thinking of this shared environment, they’ll continue to draw from the fountain of inspiration that is Anselm Fraser and his School.

chippendale_001-web

The mist is lifting now, and we’re able to gaze out over the countryside and far into the distance. There’s an air of quiet before the storm: the workshops are relatively empty, stocked with a few students who’ve been allowed to finish their courses over the summer, tutors working on projects and preparing for the new year, and, of course, the incubators starting their new businesses. But by the time you’re reading this, Chippendale will be growing the latest crop of students, and it’ll be ‘all systems go’ again. Many of them will struggle at first to keep up with the pace and intensity of the course, but in passing on making skills and plenty of commercial savvy, Anselm’s curriculum amounts to a strategy for lasting creativity. Once they finish, after all, the next move is theirs, and they’ll need to call upon all their guile and tactics to succeed.

Read More

Latest Posts

Marion Makes: When artistry meets woodworking
25th July 2022
Marion Makes: When artistry meets woodworking
Meet Furniture Maker Alirio Pinilla, 2022 Student of the Year
30th June 2022
Meet Furniture Maker Alirio Pinilla, 2022 Student of the Year
SPOTLIGHT ON…GROUP 6 OF OUR 2022 GRADUATES
9th June 2022
SPOTLIGHT ON…GROUP 6 OF OUR 2022 GRADUATES

Categories

  • Chippendale Alumni Blog
  • Chippendale News
  • Extra News
  • General
  • Professional Profiles
  • Recommended Suppliers
  • Student Stories
  • Success Stories
  • Uncategorised
  • Visiting lecturers
  • Woodworking Tips

Archives

Posts navigation

« 1 2 3 … 5 »

Contact Info

+(44) 0 1620 810680

info@chippendale.co.uk

Chippendale International School of Furniture
Gifford
East Lothian
EH41 4JA near Edinburgh
Scotland
UK

FAQs | Gallery | Guild | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy
© Chippendale International School of Furniture
Registered office: Myreside Grange, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 4JA
Company number: SC172877
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However you may visit Cookie Settings to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies, however opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

You can view details of what cookies are set here.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non Necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

Analytics

We set analytics cookies such as Google Analytics to track how people use our site so that we can understand how people use our site. While these cookies are not required for the website to function, they allow us to understand better how people use the site so we can update and improve it in future.

Save & Accept