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Yesterday I delivered the final piece of furniture for St Aubyns church. The Alter, lectern and Chair (made by Sean Stowell) are the final pieces of the project. Here are some pics.

Today I am delivering an Alice chair to Exeter. The chair has been bought as a 40th birthday present for my client’s sister. The material she chose is by the architect and designer Josef Frank of Svenskt Tenn. I love the way the fabric changes the feel of the chair and that its design is able to take such a bold patterns.

I met Amanda Le Page of Le Page Architects during the summer whilst exhibiting at Bovey Tracey Contemporary Craft Fair. We got chatting and she told me about a project that they had been working on in Plymouth to restore a church and at the same time use the building as a public library. The main work was completed and they needed someone to make the alter, lectern and a chair to complete the project and asked if I would be interested. I normally only make my own designs but the project sounded interesting and I agreed to have a look at the job.

The pieces were designed by Charlotte Burden who works for Le Page and were designed as part of the overall scheme. Here are a few pics of the alter. I will put more photo s on when I have delivered the lectern.

Earlier this year I became a member of  The Devon Guild of Craftsmen. On Monday Alice and I went down for a spot of lunch in at the guild and to hang a set of ‘Clarity shelves’ in the shop as part of their Christmas exhibition. The shelves are also available directly fom me (furniture@christianoreilly.com), they are made in oak and toughened glass and retail for £325 including p&p to mainland UK.

I decided to make an oak desk version of the fluted sideboard. Here is an image of the piece. I will be adding a full gallery page for it after I return from Origin.

We visited Glenn and Sammy of pacha design at their fantastic exhibition this weekend. They are showing their work in the bucks mills cabin along side pieces from Ramp and Sam Pickard. 

‘ in conjunction with the National Trust, Devon based designer makers pachadesign, Sam Pickard & RAMP explore a modern take on the everyday objects left inside the artists cabin at Bucks Mills, a picturesque village on the North Devon Coast.

 the cabin was owned by artists Judith Ackland & Mary Stella Edwards and is an evocative time capsule of their lives together – left today as it was in the 70’s and now owned & carefully preserved by the National Trust.’

 It is well worth the visit if you get the opportunity. There is more information on pachadesigns blog.

We had a great show at  The Contemporary Craft Fair Last weekend. There were loads of visitors even on Sunday when the weather turned. On the preview night Iwas awarded the Bovey Castle ‘Best maker in the south west’ award by Kelli Jenkins

We had a really good article about us published in this month’s Homes and Antiques. It is part of their ‘Antiques of the future’ series.

I have recently completed a pair of  brown oak shelves for a client in London. They are the same design as the Bella shelves but made using English brown oak. You can never be 100% sure of the colour of brown oak untill you apply the finish, needless to say I am really happy with the rich chocolate colour of this log.

I have recently added a new piece of furniture to my gallery. It is a two drawer oak and slate console table made for a client as a companian piece for the SB console.

I am really pleased with the way it tuned out and it looks great in its new home. For more images click here.

We got some good press coverage in an article about commissioning furniture in this months House and Garden magazine. The article titled ‘Commissioned to thrill’ features ‘some of the country’s most talented designers and designer makers specialising in one-off site specific work’. The article will profile twenty makers over two issues.

I managed to set up all the photography equipment last week an take a few shots of the Alice chair wich I recently had upholstered with fabric from Margo Selby. It is called ‘Vintage’ and is from her range of upholstery fabrics. I am really pleased with the way it turned out and will be exhibiting it at my upcoming exhibitions.

I have been out of action the last few weeks due to a nasty car accident on our return from Hereford Craft Fair. Luckily we are all all right apart from some bruising and whiplash. The furniture was not so lucky and all of the pieces of work I exhibited were badly damaged or destroyed. Life is slowly beginning to get back to normal and I am hoping to be able to start back at the workshop soon. Here is an image of the set of shelves I made the week before the show. They were broken by the ratchet strap that was holding them fast in the van.

Jonathan has a camera on his surf board and kindly gave me a few shots from saturday evening’s surf. A beautiful sunset on a beautiful beach.

Jonathan in the foreground me waving.

Niki had kindly allowed me to exhibit her dressing table at Origin 2010. So the day after the show we delivered it to her in Islington. It was great to see it alongside the fitted pieces we had installed earier in the year and with the wall mirror which ties the three pieces together.

The wardrobe and the drawer unit are painted with solid oak interiors. This helps them to blend into the room more and then have a real luxury feel when they are opened.