My brother, Dan Zongker, met with the customer and designed three pieces of furniture for their bedroom, a bed, dresser, and nightstand. The customer was looking for something traditional with carving and some kind of burl veneer.
The design he came up with was a style that is named for England's Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901. This was a style applied to English and American furniture of that time. This style of furniture elaborates on Rococo and Louis XV style, with exaggerated curves and size, lush upholstery, and carvings. This 18th Century traditional design gives this bedroom set an exquisite look, which complement both elegance and grace.
I engineered the pieces on AutoCAD, except for the carvings, which I drew free hand. I do all the carving by hand.
The bedroom set is made out of solid cherry and cherry veneer core plywood, Maple Burl Veneer. The crown molding I cut 16 layers of 1/8" solid cherry then glued them together on a radius template to equal the 1 3/4" thickness.
One of the things I enjoyed was making the radius crown moldings and fitting the center fan carving with the scrolls to the radius crown. I had to cope the inside top edge of the crown to match the radius of the scrolls. I worked on this set for three months.
Viewer Comments:
Very nice! I like all the little details. Awesome job!
i typically dont like alot of carving on woodwork , but i really like this set.i think the carving adds to the furniture in a way that isnt gaudy or over the top.nice job i like it
Whenever I see beautiful carving like this I tell myself I should learn to do that, but so far I haven't. Excellent work! Thanks for sharing
Beautiful work. I'm curious,how much time do you have in this project?
Thank you, RE Newsom
I tracked my time I spent 798 hours on the three pieces. The carving took me the longest. We have been slow so I only charged 27,000.00 for the whole set plus materials. which equals 33.83 per hour.
Nice designs. Well proportioned. Finish, fabulous. Millwork details - clean and well executed.
Take a small amount of the $27k you made on the job and go take a week long course in Classical woodcarving - you'll cut loads of time from your next job, and you can learn to carve ornament that does not look like it was done on a machine. I am serious - a week at some place like The School of Classical Woodcarving and your carving will improve an order of magnitude - it is just a matter of a small amount of training. I did a week there 20 years ago and was blown away by how well I could carve in a week. My stuff now frequently cannot be distinguished from 17th century antique. I don't think I ever would have got there but for the week of carving class. (and NO, i have no financial connection to the school - haven't seen Ian in 7 years.
That sounds like fun, and I love to learn all the time. I'm so busy I don't have the time to leave my business. Plus I don't have any extra money.
I have studied the old techniques as you speak of for many years. But, I like my style better, I smooth out all my carvings with small files. Customers, most of them like it better.
Thank you for the criticism, I like it better then anyone just saying they like it when they really don't.
Is their anyway I could see some of your carvings? I would like to see you style.
