How Iwork
I’m Bryan. I draw and build every piece here myself. I let boards settle in the shop before I cut them, and when one shows a defect under the plane it goes back on the rack and another comes down. I use machines and hand tools but no CNC, and I cut most joints by hand, partly because a chisel is easier to film than a router.
Seven principles
In the order I learned them.
- 01
Know the classic before changing it.
Most good furniture is a refinement of something older. Kaare Klint taught his students to start with a piece that had already proved itself: measure it, work out why it succeeded, then correct its proportions for the people who would use it. I do the same.
- 02
Proportion is decided.
I decide every dimension, and the small ones matter most: how far the apron sits back from the face of the leg, where a taper begins, how thick the edge of a top looks from across the room. A standard measurement is where I start asking questions.
- 03
Nothing pretends.
I don’t use imitation joinery or materials finished to look like something else. A brass inlay is real brass. A decorative curve is there because it makes the piece better, and I won’t pretend it’s structural.
- 04
Every element earns its place.
Beauty is a requirement, the same as strength. My test is to take an element away and look again. If the piece isn’t worse without it, it goes.
- 05
The material leads.
I pick the boards before I settle the drawing, and sometimes one board’s figure decides the design. Curved parts are laid out so the grain follows the curve. Contrast is planned in the first sketch: a pale wood against a dark one, a line of brass set into a top.
- 06
Joinery shows when it’s worth showing.
An exposed joint becomes part of the design, so it is held to a higher standard than a hidden one. Most of mine stay visible. When I hide one, it’s for a reason I can name: a tabletop edge that should read as one clean line, or a drawer front that needs to look like a single plane.
- 07
Built to be repaired.
I build to a standard that lets a table bought today be repaired 100 years from now. The top can move with the humidity without cracking. The joints are cut and glued so they can be opened, cleaned and put back to work. Every piece leaves the shop signed and dated, so whoever does that work will know who made it.
The shop, in plan
One machine runs at a time. Lumber comes in through the overhead door on the west wall.
Dashed: panel clearance
Filled: in place
The name
Solera
In Spanish a solera is the sill: the timber laid level on the foundation that the walls go up from. In a sherry cellar it is the bottom row of barrels, which holds the oldest wine and is drawn from for every bottling.