My fiancée and I just bought a house. I’ve been setting up my new shop here and catching up with commissioned work. I have about 500ft.² inside and 600ft.² outside. Inside I’m building a handtool workshop where the bulk of my work will be done. So far I’ve ripped out all of the old stuff from the previous owners, made necessary repairs (took a lot longer than I thought), and put in a new floor & paint. Up next I’m putting in 6” tall baseboards with a nice traditional molding. The garage is for wood storage, power tools, and a big veneer press I’m building. I’ve mostly been working in there while I get the handtool shop ready. It’s been busy!

All of that said, here is one of the things I’ve been working on outside of commissioned work. This is a bird & butterfly from one of my favorite Boulle panels. It is in the Louis XIV style and on display at The Getty. It was made sometime between 1675-1680CE. I am using the traditional French process for making and assembling marquetry as well as using a Chevalet de Marqueterie as my cutting tool. I am using the Boulle method for cutting this piece. There is a lot more to this process than I wrote about and I hope that I can make some videos in the future showing some of it.

This is the marquetry panel from the famous Boulle coffer at The Getty. I have admired this panel for years. This is Pierre Ramond's tracing which can be found in his latest book on Boulle. Next to it I have my second redrawing of the panel along with my simplified version of the bird & butterfly.