Salon Chair

A few months ago I picked up this salon hair dryer from an estate sale shop. After years of use, it was in pretty bad shape, but still worked. For the price, I couldn't pass it up. Knowing absolutely nothing about upholstery, I decided to completely renovate the piece.

The torn and dirty fabric was the first thing to be replaced. I found a few yards of bright purple vinyl at a local store and set to work cutting, stretching and stapling. The cushions were also replaced with new foam, making the chair much more comfortable. I had the piping custom made at a local shop, who also gave me some much needed advice. The white furniture nails serve both a practical and aesthetic purpose, securing the side panels to the frame.

The blower assembly and dials were completely rebuilt and rewired. All of the exposed metal was then painted flat gray. Through some creative taping and masking I was able to save the original foil stickers and dials.

Luckily, the original dome was not cracked, and cleaned up well. However, the arm rests were in bad shape and needed to be replaced. Using the originals as a template, I created a new set from red oak and finished them with a natural stain.

The chair is for sale, so feel free to email me for details. In the mean time, I've lent it out to the girls from Providence Pin-Up who recently used it in a shoot.

How not to build a door.

I tend to create a lot of dust and debris when working. So in order to keep electronics and finished projects out of harms way, I decided to turn the smaller space off the back of my studio into a clean room. The biggest hurdle was the irregular shape and size of the opening (about 6'x9')

Other factors also played into the final design. I did not want the door to have a large footprint and take up valuable floor space. I needed something lightweight, and easy to open by myself. There are numerous pipes and conduit running throughout the ceiling at varying heights. I did not want to spend more than $25, and I had absolutely no plan when I started building.

Ropes strung throughout the ceiling meet at an out of service fuse box where I can control and tie off the door. Pulling down on the main rope, opens the door halfway, and allows for personal access. The remaining two ropes fully open the door and allows for passage of larger objects. The two blocks on each side of the door lock it snugly against the wall, preventing any dust from getting in.

I also built a rack to hold all of the wood given to me by my friend Robin of Peacock Taco. I'll be elaborating on that in a future post.

Little Trees

Airborne Avenger

After many years, I finally have my own pinball machine. almost.

The machine is a 1977 Atari Airborne Avenger, one of only 350 ever made. It's unique wide body design gives an additional few inches of play, and makes it appear much larger than a standard pinball. Atari pins are not very popular among collectors due to their rarity and the inability to find replacement parts. Although it appears to be in rough shape, the backglass is almost perfect (not pictured), and after cleaning and installing a new rubber set, the field looks brand new. I also built a custom dolly in order to move it around the shop and provide added support while working on it. One of the coolest parts is that this was the first machine designed by the legendary Steve Ritchie with art by George Opperman, who was the original artist for Atari. He designed the now famous Atari logo, as well as the box art for most of the original 2600 video games.

At the moment I'm saving up in order to get the 3 main boards checked and repaired. My limited electronics skills allowed me to locate at least one short circuit which is rendering the machine unplayable. However, repairing the circuit board is best left to someone with more experience. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll have the pin up and running so I can start on a new cabinet for it. I'll most likely swap the white out for a natural wood grain, re-chrome the legs and rails, and reproduce the side graphics using vinyl.

Peacelove Retail

Here's a retail display I did for Peacelove studios a few months ago. The concept was a large framed painting which breaks apart and sits atop pre-existing fixtures. When viewed from above or at certain angles, the painting appears to be whole. The sign was hand cut and painted.

Here's the original concept sketch, along with another design for a freestanding unit.

New Site

For the past 2 months I've been working on a new website, hence the lack of updates. Although Blogger has been very good to me, I feel like it's time to move on to a portfolio based site with an integrated blog. I've slowly been learning the ins and outs of Wordpress, and hope to be live by the end of summer. In the meantime, I'm going to be updating this blog with some things I've been working on over the past few months and some upcoming project sketches.