Hattery Labs

After months of anticipation, the folks of Hattery Labs have moved into their space.  I had to leave at the beginning of February, but my friend Chris Currie carried on, finishing up the assembly, sanding, oiling, and waxing of the last few tables.  He is a consumate professional, and his work speaks for itself.  


The last day I was there, we put together the final conference table, a 14' long beast that managed, somehow, to still look fairly sleek relative to its enormous size.  I was also excited to see a 200+ pound table top supported on four slender wood legs, with no connecting tensile structure at the feet.  You can design all you want, but every time I flip over a table or a chair for the first time and see how it sits my heart leaps into my throat a little bit; design becomes real, and your reputation and ideas hit reality in one concrete moment.  I've had that moment turn into splintered wood and clenched fists; fortunately, this time, it turned into high fives and raised beers.  


What follows is some final photos of the work, and an illustrated journal of the final assembly of the conference tables, following progress posts here and here and here.  Much thanks to Mark Wills, Josh To, and all the folks at Hattery Labs, as well as Chris Currie and Jamie Sartory -- it was a helluva lot of fun.  And the tables turned out ok.

Mark Wills at work, photo by James Buyayo.

Tabletopping

I've been in San Francisco a little over three weeks now.  The nails have been pulled, the boards planed, the wood cut, the planks laminated, and now, at long last, desks and conference tables are taking shape.  It's been a good bit of work; not just the physical transformation of the ceiling joists, but design meetings, structural adjustments, and on-the-fly decisions.  It's also been nice collaborating with the Hattery team and Chris Currie, as they have informed, educated, and shaped the designs with their input. 


Every time I put hand to lumber, something comes together, from finger to brain and back, a long, sincere synaptic journey bridging idea and object.  This has been a true guerilla process, working in a basement, camping out on someone else's floor, living on takeout and sawdust and sketches.  Here's the latest dispatch from the front lines.  

Chris Currie, planetainin'.

Desk legs.

Lacking a jointer big enough to effectively square our longest boards, I hand-planed them.  Old school.

Of Air Mattresses and Table Tops

I have now been in San Francisco for ten days.  The weather has been beautiful, the people great, and the food amazing.  I've moved from Mark's couch to an airbed on the floor of Hattery's conference room.  I'm up a little before six every day, awakened by the crew working on the new space underneath me.  A big pot of coffee, a granola bar, an apple, and I'm down to the basement, where a pile of reclaimed ceiling joists await transformation conference tables and desks. 

A lot has happened it the time I've been here: I've de-nailed 75 boards; my boss bought a full suite of wood shop tools from some folks down the street; I've planed one side of all the boards; with the help of an old friend from Alabama who just moved to the Bay Area, Chris Currie, we ripped the edges off all the boards to square them; and we started laminating the joists into table tops.  In between all this, I've been working away on the designs for the bases of the work tables, watching a little playoff football, and checking out some amazing food.  

Despite progress, there is still a long way to go.  I'm grateful for Chris's help, and the support of the folks at Hattery, and looking forward to getting on with it . . . .

The raw joists.  Old growth fir, they are from a building that is around sixty years old, meaning the trees these boards came from possibly began growing around the Civil War.  An privilege to work with such storied stuff. 

Pulling a lot of iron out of the boards.   

Close-up.