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I'm not sure why it happens, but sometimes I get involved in building something that turns out to be one my favorite builds ever ... this is one of those projects.
Not long ago I made a video on some of the elements that go into "distressing wood" in an effort to make wood look old and well used. In this article we take that information and apply it to the making of an antique style Ice Box, something that would have been built and used between the 1880s and 1920s. This piece of furniture was crudely made, probably by people with few tools and little knowledge of woodworking. There are very few of these pieces around anymore, most have long since been scraped so in order to have something like this means recreating it.
I don't know why this piece of furniture caught my eye, something about it was appealing. I love old and antique furniture and this little ice box seemed like a nice piece to replicate. Anyone looking very closely at it would not be fooled, and certainly any furniture expert would not be deceived by the replication of a piece of furniture like this but in a room full of furniture, this piece stands out by giving the illusion that it has been around for many decades and could likely have been rescued from an old barn or disused cottage in many parts of the world.
How to Make an Antique Style Ice Box
Because this piece was to appear old I worked hard at finding rough cut lumber that had nasty knots, cracks saw marks, chips and gouges in it because this would all add to the finished affect.
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I don't know who coined the phrase "what's old is new and what's new is old" but it certainly fits well in the entire furniture making industry. There are many companies that work hard making new furniture look old. It's not that they are trying to fool anyone, they are filling a market need. There is lots of old furniture around in various states of condition but sometimes it's quicker and easier to replicate the furniture than it is to go out an find it, then to carefully restore it specific condition.
The elements that go in to making new wood look old are as varied as you can imagine and basically there is no right or wrong way of doing it, you just do what ever works. All that really counts in the end is how the finished piece looks and if it lives up to your expectations.
Making Distressed Wood for an Antique Look
Of course the first thing to choose is the type of wood you want to use and if you want to stay true to replicating a specific piece of furniture you would want to use the same wood, but, as I said, there are no rules, if you want to use a different kind of wood, you need to experiment with how the finished wood will look and this means working with different finishes, like dyes, stains and top coats ...
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"What's new is old and what's old is new". I haven't heard that saying in a long time but I had forgotten how true it is. Standing desks have been around for decades that I know of and probably for centuries in one form or another, but all of a sudden, they are "new" and "trending".
The main reason of course that standing desks are becoming so popular is not because of where they are used but because of why they are used ... to get people standing in stead of sitting, which of course burns off more calories and helps to reduce our overweight society. Not a bad idea really.
Standing desks have, and are being used in many commercial and industrial situations. Shippers and warehouse people couldn't function with out them, they are always on the move but still need a place to fill out paperwork before they are on the move again. Architects and people in the art world, especially those working on larger pallets need these kinds of desks because they are moving around them in many cases, and the list goes on.
Making a Standing Desk
The neat thing about standing desks is that if you find your need to sit at them for s longer time, you just need to pull up a stool and now you have a place to sit, and the good things with stools, they still make the body work because they don't have back support so they still help us burn more calories while exercising our muscles.
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Well ... you may choose to call it something else, and you would not be wrong with whatever name you gave this handy little table. I has many uses and many names. I have been unable to find it earliest source or where it originated from which probably means version of this go back so far it is beyond recorded history of furniture making.
I have always wanted to make one of these little tables but always had concerns about the wood movement in the legs. Depending on the moisture content and the type and cut of the wood the legs could have a mind of their own in terms of bending and bowing. I knew the best way to combat this was to laminate the wood in the legs which goes a long way to keeping the legs stable, straight and very strong.
This method is nothing knew, I first discovered it when I had the opportunity to see in person some original Gustav Stickley furniture. One of the things I noticed on some pieces was that the legs were composed of 2 pieces of wood glued together. I was told, this was not because they didn't have the wood in the correct sizes, or could not get it, but that the pieces that were glued together were actually more stable as laminated wood with less tendency to bow and bend when subjected to varying humidity levels.
Building an Album Table
The information wasn't new to me, but what was new was that for some reason, to have Gustav Stickley using this technique seemed somehow legitimize the methodology. For some reason in my mind, I never really thought about the fact that all these amazing woodworkers of past had the same wood movement problems we all still encounter today ...