Conceptual Carpentry

Custom Loft Beds***Altars***Treehouses***Little Libraries

“If we start off not knowing what we’re going to do, we could do anything.” —Terry Pratchett

Do you dream of theme room carpentry/interior finishing? “Oh, that’s just for kids.” Why should kids have all the fun? Creative conceptual carpentry for your kids or you! Explore the child within! How about adult fun such as:

Folk Art Interior finishing?
Castle Loft Bed?
The Hundred Acre Wood?
Barbie’s Playhouse
Dr. Seuss Interiors?
Art Deco Touches?
Art Nouveau Flourishes?
Tahitian Tree House bedroom?
Parisian Nightclub any Historical Period?
Mid-century Modern?
Neo-Dada Living Room?
Weimar Republic nightclub?
Zen Rock Garden Living Room?
CBGB’s?
Frank Gehry Living Room?
Wild West Saloon?
Canopy Bed with Trees as Corner Posts?
Desert Island Family Room?
Rene Magritte Inspired rooms?
Man Cave?
Arts and Crafts (Craftsman) Stylings?
Meditation Garden Sunroom?
Pee Wee’s Playhouse?
Baba Yaga Study?
Log Cabin Flavored Interiors?
Altars? Altars…Altars…Altars
Day of the Dead funeral procession living room?
Spires of Sacré-Cœur? With Gargoyles?
Roman bedroom?
Folk Victorian interiors/exteriors?
Parisian Catacombs?
Sherwood Forest living room?
Pompeiian bathroom?
Hanging Gardens of Babylon Library
Circus Themed Rooms?
Venetian Doge’s Palace den?
Firehouse living room?
Camelot bedroom?
Flintstone’s living room?
Hawaiian lanai living room?
Stateroom from a 1940s ocean liner?
Pirate ship living room?
Forest of Arden living room?
Isle of Lesbos playroom?
…or whatever you desire!?
Theatrical “set design” for the stage your life is enacted upon. You need not be constrained by shortage of nerve or imagination (or ignorance of the properties of materials)
“Can you really build that?”
Oh, yes. If you can dream it, I can build it! For you or your children. Or I’ll dream it with/for you!
Historically-accurate or Creatively Fantastical!
I’ll make your dreams come true! Why be normal?
“It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” Marilyn Monroe
Magnificent obsessions brought to Life.
I am compulsively creative, effortlessly imaginative.
Let’s talk!

Castle Bed

This was a really fun project for a very creative customer. All right it was for me. When I still lived in Chicago in the late 70s, I rented a studio apartment in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. The building was a beautiful old Victorian where the original three full floor apartments had been chopped up into smaller units. My studio was basically one room with a galley kitchen, small hallway and a bathroom. The best part of the apartment was the 11 foot ceiling. It wasn’t till I moved in that. I realized that there was no way I’d be able to simulate any usable version of a real apartment. There was so little floor space. So I conceptualized and built my Castle Loft Bed. I bolted together iron slotted angle, bolted plywood to it, and started to decorate. I decided it needed a a bump out front mini tower, and two bay windows, one on each side. I soaked, shaped, and installed the cedar shingles on bolts the tower and bay window. I created the mini balconies outside the two windows. I decided to use foam rubber which I stacked up and glued up and then shaped into the tower base. I fabricated the column and capital out of foam rubber. I found the stone look fabric and sewed a cover for the column and the capital. I then. stained and painted all wood. The little extension tower on the left needed wrought iron so I took some metal clothes, hangers them straight and then shaped them along with some small curtain rods. It all cried out for Ivy so I bought woolen green rope applied that and then cut and applied green flannel ivy leaves. I finished the trim and then trimmed the inside of the loft bed. I would love to do other projects like this…

Plywood on, “stone look-wood,” shingles on, and tower base begun

You can see the shingles and trim applied on the side bay window

My construction manager cat lived through the entire construction

A friend painted the clouds on the walls and the closet door

A good view of the wrought iron and the burgeoning ivy

Close up of the ivy, the column and the stone rounded window trim

You can see the three part foam rubber wrapped column capital

The bed walls installed and wave pattern fabric on the ceiling

Oh yes, and the Rousseau bathroom, more pictures available upon request.

Japanese Shoji Door and Window

A basement guest room needed to be made more private. And they didn't want to close the doorway up and just put curtains in the window or some other uncreative solution. The cheap Target folding screen they had gave us the answer. We decided on a Japanese shoji sliding paper door and window cover.

From online: “A shoji is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of translucent sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque fusuma is used. Shoji usually slide, but may occasionally be hung or hinged, especially in more rustic styles.”

The low basement ceiling and other original construction constraints required that we custom build the doors and window and install them to the particular sizes necessary. Both doors can slide on their barn door track, but we temporarily fixed one so that the one door was the moving door and the window screen was fixed in place.

This was the rare job that I did not do the finish priming and painting; the customer was going to paint.

New doors in place, window in place view from the basement

View from inside the room with doors and window trimmed in place

Finished installation. Waiting for the painters.

Dragon Door

This was one of those “could ya?” jobs. Could ya decorate a simple small airlock mud area between outer storm door and inner prime door? Soitenly! I found some clear redwood!! online. Just enough for this small art installation. I cut the dragon head and claws, sanded around the perimeter and set it back in. I cut out the letters to the words HERE THERE BE DRAGONS and attached them. I used rough cedar plywood to cover the walls and trimmed that. I was really happy about the treeform curved top and bottom door casing. I invented this in the 80s on a job unfortunately way before I thought of taking pictures of projects.

Applied a 2nd thickness of redwood to simulate dragon body/tail in a very small space

A snippet of the adjacent wall. Room was 4 feet wide so pix were constrained

A special view of the right side of the treeform door casing

Especial view of the left side of the treeform door casing

One more view. Imagine your own. I can do it.

Japanese Entry

This project involved making a much more welcoming entry to this the back door of the house. The deck sidewalk and Pergola were there. I added everything else. The bamboo came wired together. It was perfect for this application. I fabricated the cedar bottom trim and the new trim around the door. There had been an old milk delivery doorway opening where the shrine eventually grew. I pulled off the doorway over the opening insulated and started to create the cedar shrine. I flashed the little roof and then finished it with copper “shingles" and copper flashing and facing. These were provided by Badger Diversified Metal in Madison. They are amazing. I applied the ornately carved piece to give it an air of gravitas. This came from my personal collection of building ephemera. I eventually closed the shrine with a plexiglass panel for optimal viewing. I stained all new wood.