I stupidly left my camera tripod in Peter’s workshop, so was unable to take a decent photo of the spectacular collection of 24 chairs, which Peter and his gang had already assembled. May 24th June 7th June 26th July 5th july 19th August 9th August 23rdĮasily reached F-clamps holding down my own lightweight bench Since then, they have been used with varying success over seven 5-day courses to produce 27 unique heirlooms for their delighted makers. So, log by log, I stacked them in a cool, dry, shady spot between my workshop and the adjacent stream. The logs, cleft in half and stacked under cover by the stream This log, wasn’t so fibrous but it was more regular in its growth and would prove good for cleaving in metre lengths for back chair-legs half of each of these two logs.ĭespite thirty years working with this stuff, it is still difficult to ascertain the specific quality of a log by looking at its bark. Good, straight, tough, fibrous ash-wood a straight, symmetrical log, ideal for back legs of chairs Because the pith was off-centre, it wasn’t ideal for cleaving the long slender back legs of chairs, so it was cut into shorter lengths for the other chair parts. These whispy fibres signified that this wood would have the elastic strength for which ash is renown. This log looked straight with no obvious knots but was very slow grown (which in ash is a bad quality), so mostly went as firewood wispy fibres – a sign of tough chair-making wood I measured the volume of each log and after arriving home and cleaving them, I sorted the good chair-making logs from the inferior wood, which was valued as firewood (there is no such thing as ‘waste’ in the greenwood world!) A log with a rotten centre Crunchie and Mike coming back from the woods in 2015 A collection of logs ready to be picked up The logs loaded for home. As I started setting up for my fourth year of courses at Greenwood Cottage, very nearly 20 years later, Gudrun invited me to look through some of the ash logs that had been felled over the winter by our mutual colleague, Crunchie together with his wonderful horses. As it turned out, it was eventually purchased by my former colleague, Gudrun Leitz along with the much larger, neighbouring Childer Wood (see ‘Living Wood’ pages 41 & 42). It had been planted mainly with conifers but it also contained some fine young ash trees which were a mixture of coppice and natural regeneration. Check her out here.I had last set foot in Meephill Coppice in May 1999, when it was up for sale. She is a wonderful painter and she has a pretty cool blog. BTW - the painting of the girl is done by one of my besties. I painted the walls this okra color, which in person just makes the room's energy so much more alive. Plus I couldn't figure out how to decorate with it. I had originally wanted a blue/black but it didn't turn out quite right. So that is what I lived with for a while, but I never really liked the blue. I think these were intended as wall art, but I bought two and made them a ceiling medallion (that was quite a project with super glue!). I found this cheap glass chandelier and sprayed it white (what a job that was) and then added the ceramic vines from Urban Outfitters. The room started with beige walls and the three mirrored boxes were three small windows that showed nothing but my neighbors siding so I added black film and mirror and then molded them out in the white molding. The before picture isn't really the true before, before.

But I still wanted to share the progress I made this weekend.

I call this look one, because I still need to add the wallpaper in the molding squares that will better tie the rug and the wall color together.

Ash coppice