Tag: Campaign Furniture

Candle Box build

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

As part of my on-going campaign furniture project I decided that I needed a small box to hold beeswax candles and a few candle stick holders. I contemplated spending way too many hours crafting a small box with dovetails or finger joints, but good sense and my travel schedule won out and I happened on a wooden 2-bottle wine presentation box at Goodwill while I was there perusing for candle holders and baseball bats (for my lathe). I found four nice small Indian-made brass holders that fit in half the box with just the right amount of patina and beausage. I glued in a plywood separator in the middle of the box and cut down a piece of 1/4″ plywood scrap to cradle the holders. I glued that into one of the halves. A coat of red mahogany stain was rubbed on the outside and the box was finished off with two coats of polyurethane. An appropriately dinged-up brass handle was a sourced for $0.50 at a local reclaimed hardware shop and the box is now ready for a safari, Glamping, or romantic dinners in the back yard, etc..

Campaign Furniture Love and Build

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I am a sucker for campaign furniture – the real stuff not the 1970’s MDF, lime green crap with cheapo plated straps and corners applied. Nope, I am talking about furniture that could have been broken down and loaded in a wagon, put on a mule, or strapped to a camel and toted around the world to reside in an officer’s tent in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush, the plains of the Ganges, or on the savannas of the Rift Valley. There is a single modern volume – now out of print – that I have checked out of the local library (through inter-library loan) 4 times and have scanned it in it’s entirety. I also have a 19th century catalog that is printed on pulp paper and completely falling apart that I peruse a good bit. I have even planned a couple of days off while traveling around seeing particular pieces and collections: there is a small shop in the Charleston, SC antique district that I spent hours in and while in London last year I found a shop that I wanted to move into. To tempt me even more, I have read rumors that Chris Schwartz, author of The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, is working on a new book and I am vibrating with anticipation.

There is a bit of both romance and leisurely comfort when one spends time afield surrounded by real furniture. I have a couple of original pieces, but they were dear enough that they cannot leave the house and won’t be spending any time glamping with us in the summer or in a high-country elk camp. Instead, I have been working on some modern versions that can be thrown in the back of a truck, hauled at high speed down goat trails, and opened up like Optimus Prime to reveal stout, useful, pleasing furniture. I have a source for solid wood shipping crates of different sizes that I have cut, stained, altered, and added to for this purpose. The limiting factor in all of this, is that every single piece has to break down, or fold up so that everything together fits in the bed of a small truck: 4’X6′

Right now, I have the cast iron cookware box, a candle box, 2 small tables, and a field desk done. I am 90% done with the wet bar (you NEED booze while glamping…) and an oil lamp/lantern box. The camp kitchen is in work, but will not be near complete or usable by the time we move. I have also designed a linen trunk, small chest of drawers, and a full-sized bed, but these haven’t even been started. The Campaign Furniture build is an on-going task and I hope to finish it all while we are in France. We are actually contemplating using it to furnish our guest room there.

Getting ready for our move to France – first round

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

We/I have some serious work to do before we move to France for two years and we have a list of stuff that needs to happen. Here is the initial “to-do” post:

The Lawn:
The Nana is going to be moving into our house and will be puttering around the yard, planting flowers and the like, but there is no way that she will be pruning trees, cutting the lawn, weed eating, edging, or pulling pine needles out of the gutters. There is a little time, so we have contracted a crew to start taking are of the lawn now so that any kinks will be worked out.

In the spirit of full disclosure, the timing of this yard work transition was set into full motion only when my lawnmower blew up. Really, really – kaboom! As in there was a silver dollar-sized hole in the side of the piston housing and oil spewed everywhere. Right up until that moment the lawn caed transition was just a good idea. After it died, I threw it in the back of the truck, so it wouldn’t leak anymore oil on my grass and called the lawn service. There were a couple of things after their 1st visit, that I would like done differently, but on the whole, so far so good.

Projects:
The Kitchen HAS TO BE COMPLETED. I have stopped working on my Basement of Doom, the Campaign Camping Furniture, wood turning and a couple of refinish projects until the kitchen is complete. I will work down from there and not take on ANY new projects. I have two chests of drawers and a Duncan Phyfe Table that I want to complete and sell so that I am not storing them.

Shop:
I hate my table saw. I am going to out the beast on Craig’s List along with my contractor’s saw (Just collects spiders and sawdust), 12″ band-saw, small joiner, small drill press and the miter-box saw. None of them will work in France (50Hz vs. 60Hz power issues), so I can’t take’em with me. They are all old and have had a good life with me. It is time that I pass them on to new homes where they will see less use and live out their golden years making soapbox derby cars and bird feeders. I am planning to use any money made to invest in both some quality carving chisels and I will save part for the down payment on all new, cabinet shop-quality, power tools when we return to the US.

I can’t not build stuff, so I am taking the Anarchist’s Tool Chest route and am taking a rebuilt an old ammo/tool box (see evolution in pictures below) into a more useful tool travel case and will then show up in France with planes (22 of them), carving knives, mallets, hand saws, chisels, etc… The plan is to make smaller more detailed items, mostly by hand, while I am there (I will be sourcing a lathe and doing some bowl work though…).

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Cast Iron Camping Cookware Box

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

In my on-going project to build the finest glamping/campaign furniture kit in the Pacific Northwest, I have added a custom box for holding all of our cast iron and campfire cooking gear.  It all started out with a wooden box I picked up at a garage sale that was full of a cast iron camp set that had been used once.  We have added a square fry pan, pot lifters, trivets, stand-off, roasting sticks, a grill, bacon press, a 12″ lid, and corn-shaped bread pan.  I had thought about including all of it in my camp kitchen, but it would have made the unit so heavy that I would have needed a winch to get it off and on to my truck bed.

The box that it came with was just a roughly tacked together crate, but it had potential.  I spent a couple of hours adding trim, remaking the lid, adding reinforcement, and painting it a deep red.  To Finish it off I added brass pipe handles and brass closures.  It is still not light, but one person can carry and move it.  The “new” box holds all the aforementioned gear, looks snazzy, and doubles as a seat for around the campfire.

Campaign Furniture

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

Charleston, SC is one one the places that makes Marta Stewart go all weak in the knees: it is antiques heaven.  I had just finished reading a post on the Lost Art Press Blog about a shop there that deals mainly in campaign furniture (a type of furniture made specifically for travel and/or military campaigning and something that makes  my inner Martha breathe heavy), when I got the serendipitous news that my J-O-B was sending me there for a few days. Well then…  I had one afternoon off and I drug a couple of coworkers to the antiques district downtown and hunted for the shop.  My, my, my….  The proprietor had original pieces from the British Raj that he let me fondle and covet.  I really wanted some personal alone time with a specific teak and wicker lounger.  Me, the chair, some port, candle light, and sweet, sweet love….

I am in the process of building my own campaign-style camp kitchen, chairs, table, and wet bar to take with us on the Lukowski-Gahagan-Talley Glamping trips planed for this spring and summer, where roughing it means the mushrooms are crimini instead of chantarails.   I snagged a few ideas from the shop and some additional research that I am incorporating.  I will post when somewhat complete, but in the meantime, take a look at some of the pictures I snapped and have included below.