hanok and more

Some recent work to share here.

The first table set used the heavy hard pine we collected and milled from our mountain. I may have enough for one more table. This design has been popular; the fourth this spring. The nice feature is one board not cut square , so leaving the wavy edge of branch knots and such. After joing the 4 boards and butt ends, I cut off and ground the sapwood to get down to the tough and dense, resinous reddish wood. It gets Smoothed out and is a lovely front edge to this desk.

We've sold a lot of "rustic' furniture lately although it's not made with branches as in American rustic so I prefer to call it vintage. It's made of reclaimed wood, which has always been one of my main concepts for furniture at Le Marais. However, Korea has a distinct lack of decent used wood, we do pay a fair price, or rather the customer does. We got to sort through some hanok a couple weeks back and the above is from that wood, mostly white pine. I choose the least cracked pieces and then cut to dimension. It's dirty work with decades of dust and crud in the cracks and pores. The boards are often warped , twisted, dented, holed so selecting pieces is a challenge. We sand and wire brush the dark outside to raise and stress the grain and its texture. usually finished with boiled linseed oil. I'm not a fan of glass top tables, but it's pretty hard to find any in Korea without glass. The chair design is bit of a departure for us and we're pleased. the little bench was enormously popular in the shop, so we'll make some for stock; I returned to the used wood lot and grabbed all remaining usable pieces.

Both a re f'n heavy tables.

We're getting an old butcher's band saw next week ( not many used carpentry tools out there, and import ones are all overpriced- despite being made in China or Asia, tools are twice the price you pay at Home Depot: limited demand) and i will be able to cut more lumber out of the old posts and beams collected.

Below , is a console made with reclaimed siding ( some of which is Western Red Cedar) . The door is made by gluing some of our heaps of scraps.


and this is me as I approach middle age...

This is hanok. Hanok is a generic term for traditional post and beam wood construction with clay tile roofing. This is temple near Jiri national park dating to 9th C. AD. So they stand the test of time.
This hanok was once tofu restaurant near Jong-up, a small city an hour from Jeonju. The above table set delivery was the reason for our trip. We visited a traditional method sewing teacher who lives and works next to this building. The wavy beams are superb, this building is about 1000 sq. feet, and the roof tiles are in good shape except a bout 5% on the back side. The lot, complete with pond and granite walkway through the pond, some lovely trees and 4 more buildings is for sale for about 100k: a great fixer upper but too much work for us and not a great location. No, we are not thinking about it.