Quandry Design's Found Objects Furniture

You may not realize it, but I am a (proud) Texan. What that means to my steampunk aesthetic is that I like the "Old West" influenced steampunk. Firefly & Serenity? Love it. Wild Wild West? Cool. Legend? Haven't seen it, but on the list. (Are there any Western steampunk novels or comics? I can't think of any off the top of my head....)



With that in mind, I wanted to introduce some work by Quandry Design. Quandry specializes in high end western furniture, but the Found Objects series features a lot of reused technology parts -- old tractor parts, gear patterns, sprocket wheels, saw blades, and a brake rotor -- in a style that works very nicely as western steampunk.

Steampunk Refrigerator?

I was browsing refrigerators this weekend with some family members looking for a new one, and was struck by some of the trends in refrigerator aesthetics that would fit nicely into a steampunk kitchen.


The first is Kenmore's new Pro series with -- get this -- analog dials. Sure, it's still stainless steel, which is not at all steampunk, but it's nice and industrial looking to be able to check the fridge and freezer temperature by looking at these nice gauges on the front.

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Second is the new Jenn-Air Oiled Bronze Kitchen Suite. According to the marketing spiel, "the subtle interplay between bronze and copper allows oiled bronze appliances to blend beautifully with rustic, modernist, or classic town and country settings." Not entirely sure about that, but I did like the "old metal" look of it. I'd try to replace the stainless steel handles with something custom, but

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The coolest fridge by far is the Elmira Stoveworks Antique Styled Fridge. Available in 2 depths, they come in black, white, bisque, blue, red, or green. You can get brass or copper door frames and handles. (Imagine a black fridge with brass frames and handles...)

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Last, one of the trends in refrigerators is the ability to replace the fronts (and sides) with custom panels (in theory to match your cabinets, though they wouldn't have to). Viking makes some that you can put any 3/4" thick surface on. Imagine the possibilities: embossed copper, polished brass (wonder if it would be too heavy?), leather.... Frankly the creative openendedness is a bit overwhelming.

The Air Ship -- a Musical Farce Comedy for your Wall

As we were purusing our morning electro-papers this morning over coffee (half a mile apart, sigh), Mr. Brumfield kindly pointed me to this posting on Paleo-Future on The Air Ship: A Musical Farce Comedy. Now musical theatre is not the focus on this blog, but since this particular show comes with some lovely posters, I thought I would share.



Don't you just adore the bicycling airship mother with twins?

Matt at Paleo-Future points out that there are many places online to buy posters like those shown below but I would recommend downloading the Library of Congress files here and here and bringing them to your favorite photo-printing establishment that can handle poster-sized prints.

Given the appropriate framing, and perhaps with a small novelty airship hanging close by, this would make a lovely addition to your wall.

Interview the Designers of the Edison Bar -- Submit your Questions!

I have some very exciting news...

The designers of the Edison Bar -- Stacie Jaye Meyer and Tony Egan -- have agreed to be interviewed by The Steampunk Home.

Stacie is a decorative painter, and while most of her work isn't visible on Dave Bullock's popular flickr set, she does have some shots on her website (choose "commerical" -- the first 5 are of the Edison Bar). Here is a quick small sample:





I'm not entirely sure what Tony did, but I assume a substantial amount of "everything else."

I'd like to do this interview in a style pioneered by Slashdot -- with reader submitted questions. If you would submit your questions in the comment section below, I'll edit it down to 10 or so good ones, send it to Stacie and Tony, and publish the results. Of course, I'll give the submitters links/credits (don't forget to include your website if you want a link).

I'm about to leave for my summer vacation -- expect a blogging hiatus for a while, but some good Ottoman Empire Steampunk posts when I get back -- so I'm going to take questions in the comments for 2 weeks.

So -- start thinking! What do you want to know about the Edison Bar? Where they sourced all those cool generators? What was the inspiration? How you can get the same effects for your home?

Please help me spread the word so we get some good questions!

Decorative Imaging prints Traditional Wood Marquetry

The summer edition of O At Home has an article on a New York company called Decorative Images who generates extremely traditional decorative surfaces by printing them onto wood veneer with a large format digital printer.

The men choose wood from the the thousands of high-resolution textures in their digital library. "We have scans of 600 different sheets of oak," Kusek says. "It's like having a lumberyard in your computer." To simulate a patina, they add layers of computerized grime.

Before

After

There is also an article about the firm online at the Wide Format Imaging website.

In addition to custom work for decorators, they are debuting a line of tiles, borders, and medallions that the rest of us could use in our decorating.



They are worth a look, and then at least an hour of draydreaming on how you could hack traditional design motifs to make them steampunk, if you only had access to a large format printer. (Or what you could do at home on your laser printer with a small piece of wood veneer. Perhaps a case for a obscure scientific device?)

Maschinenleuchten

An old post on Brass Goggles, and a new one on Boing Boing, both point to these Maschinenleuchten (machine lights) by artist Frank Buchwald.

Each object is manually produced from up to 200 individual parts (Including hand-made globe, type 01 or glasscylinder type 10). Each light is therefore unique.

Steel and brass parts produced from raw steel and brass, and burnished by hand, creating a black surface structure with a brownish hue. The brass parts are given a fine finish and the steel parts are treated with the silky matt finish.

The voltage is 230V (110V with voltage converter). Electricity flows through visible wires made of black and yellow textile cables and sometimes encased in flexible brass tubes.
Effective special bulbs and light tubes with partially visible filaments or yellow surface evaporation allow the Machine Lights to glow mysteriously.

The low volume production takes place in Berlin and requires a manufacture time of 4 weeks and more depending of the model.

There's even a short photo-essay on how they are made.

I loved the one above with it's art deco lines. (It's reassuring to me to find art deco and steampunk coexisting so elegantly, since I love them both so.)

It's implied they are for sale, but, as my father says "If you have to ask you can't afford them."

Curio Cabinet

A very surreal music video ("Motus" by Seb Martel) that takes place in a steampunkesqe bookshelf found by The Practical Archivist.



Delightfully cluttered, full of wonderful things, no?