Curvy Oak Desk

Around four years ago a tree fell over in a customers garden and today I delivered the first piece of furniture made from that tree.

Bedside Table

A Bedside Table that was recently completed. This one was made to the design of Neil Trett.
http://www.trett-design.co.uk/contact 

It's Wheelie Good!

New from the workshop.

A small occasional table for a kitchen with a matching granite worktop. This table is for one of the Masters of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers. The designer for this elegant piece was Tim Wood.

Lily Leaf Sideboard

Lily Leaf Sideboard

The latest design from the workshop!

The Lily Leaf Sideboard  is made from american black walnut and Morris & Co fabric.

Lovely black walnut

If you would like to see more I will be exhibiting the sideboard at Grand Designs Live Excel 4th - 12th May 2013.

Golden Lily Drinks Cabinet

It's that time of year again!  My latest exhibition piece for the 

DESIGNER CRAFTS AT THE MALL 2013

Followers of the blog will have picked up on the decoupage theme over the last year, now Morris & Co feature with Golden Lily.

The large pattern is perfect for this scale of furniture.

The drawer front is pink quilted maple.

If you have an idea for a project you would like to discuss then contact me for a chat.

Deco Delight!

The latest design from the workshop!

Decoupaged radiator cover in Deco Delight fabric.

Now we can coordinate your radiator with your soft furnishings!

Want to learn more?  Contact me via email

www.jasonmuteham.com

Wood & Form 2012

Great venue, great exhibition!

www.woodform.org.uk

Let there be light!

Table lamps with a Art Deco feel.

This one is specially designed to fit on narrow mantelpieces and console tables with its semi-circular oak base and half-moon lampshade. 

The shade is hand-made in silk tafetta and trimmed with the same vintage Rennie Mackintosh design fabric on the base.

The lamps will be on display at Wood & Form 2012 if you would like more information contact me. 

Pug Cabinet

A fresh design from the workshop.

Made to order. See website for more details jasonmuteham.com

Vintage silk from abbeychic.com

Big Blue Coffee Table

A fresh design from the workshop. 

I liked the look of this fabric so much that I just had to produce a piece of furniture to show it off.  Many more fabric and timber designs in the pipe line!

If you would like to know more contact me via my website www.jasonmuteham.com 

More Decoupage Inspired Furniture.

A lamp table? Small side table? Plant stand?

Vintage fabric from abbeychic.com

Look out for another fabric combination later this week.  If you are interested in commissioning a piece with your own choice of fabric let me know.

Also due very soon, a colourful coffee table design. 

Decoupage with a twist!

The art of decoupage and furniture is not new. Although decoupage is usually used to give a new lease of life to a tired piece of furniture. I thought that integrating decoupage techniques in to the original furniture design would open up some exciting possibilities.  

More hybrid furniture designs to  follow in the coming months.

Contact me if you would like to know more or have a project in mind. 

Good Design v Bad Design

.........or my award winning covers v traditional radiator covers.

First off lets define what we mean by a traditional style radiator cover, basically a MDF box with a grille of some sort at the front. Still not sure? A Google image search will produce hundreds of examples, every 'man and his dog' seems to make or sell them. The idea is that the box hides the radiator, the warmth radiates out of the grill, you gain a shelf and they are cheap to buy, so far so good.

But is that the whole story? Well, no. Time for some design.

What is good design? In my opinion good design elegantly solves a problem or in other words it works and looks great.

So what is the problem we are trying to solve? In a nutshell, to hide the ugly radiator without seriously effecting the heating performance.

A traditional cover will hide a radiator, it is however debatable if they are visually more appealing that the offending radiator. What about the effect on the heating performance? This is where is gets interesting.

Modern radiators (the standard white ones most people have) despite their name mostly work by convection. Simply put, convection is cold air in at the bottom of the radiator and hot air out of the top, the hot air circulates around the room before cooling, falling to floor level where the cycle starts again. The fixed shelf on top of a traditional cover stops the convection cycle, the performance of your radiator has now been seriously impaired.

So, what about my award winning radiator covers? Firstly my covers are open at the bottom and allow the hot air directly out of the top, the convection cycle is not interrupted and your radiators work as designed. Do they look good? I like to think so, but you be the judge!

Finally the issue of cost.  You can buy a traditional style cover very cheaply, however the associated reduced performance of the radiators will mean running your heating system longer to warm a room.

Good design may not be cheap but bad design can be expensive!

Designing Day

Today is a designing day, I will be out of the workshop and in the office, I thought I'd share some of my designs that have yet to see the light of day.

The brief for this design was a wooden briefcase.  All my initial designs start life on paper, it allows me to quickly doodle ideas, if any of the ideas appear promising I will fire up the computer and launch Google Sketchup.

Sketchup is great tool for quickly getting ideas in to a format that is easy to present to clients.

Most design ideas will require a period of tweaking before they start to feel right.

Once I'm happy with the sketchup drawing I will usually render the image to produce a realistic(ish) image with the desired materials.