Fine Finishes

Artistic Interfaces When wood-carver William Schnute begins the design work for a custom, hand-carved wood entryway or door, he talks to the customer about his or her home, life, and interests to get the flavor of his or her personality. Frequently, he says, he even asks the homeowner to take a photo of the front of their home, then turn around and take a photo of the view that will be framed by the front door.

At his Oak Leaves Studio, Schnute works mostly with nature themes. He particularly likes to carve the below-ground and above-ground views of trees, illustrating both the beauty of the tree and the intricacies of its hidden root system. “I like to deal with the interfaces between air, water, and land. Biologically, it’s a very active spot, and it’s interesting to see how they all interrelate. I try to show this on doors, because doors are interfaces between personal or private areas and public areas,” he says.

He prefers to use American hardwoods, favoring hardrock maple, walnut, cherry, and white oak. The wood used for specific projects depends on how the grain could either highlight or interfere with the design, but also on the lighting where the door will be installed, which he replicates in his studio. Schnute kiln-dries his own wood and prepares it for the rough-out before the carving begins. Frequently, he builds the door frames as well. All doors arrive at the jobsite finished and ready to hang. 888.621.2506. www.redshift.com/~oakleaves/ index2.html.

Surving Up Nature Sculptors Natalie and Richard Surving craft ceramic bas-relief art tiles featuring reptiles, amphibians, insects, and foliage that combine with their line of high-relief field tiles to create custom wall or backsplash murals, shower installations, swimming pools, fireplaces, fountains, and more.

The pair confers with clients for complicated configurations, going through design possibilities. Using a computer program, the Survings can reconfigure, recolor, and recut their full line of standard tiles as the client dictates, lay them out in a design, then send color mock-ups for approval. Surving Studios offers a wide array of satin matte color options, but custom colors are also possible.

The Survings combine their talents to deliver precisely what their clients ask for. Natalie frequently sketches from living objects she’s seen, and “if there’s a unique problem with a certain job, Richard is brilliant at solving it,” she says. They also create fountains and sculptures, and sometimes combine the two.

Each custom tile configuration ships to the dealer or the job-site with a full-color rendition of its layout. 845.355.1430. www.surving.com.

Through Colored Glass Stained glass artist Daniel Maher uses traditional techniques combined with new technology to produce custom stained glass windows or panels. Maher works in opalescent and prismatic glass and in a variety of pressed, cast, and found glass objects, such as wine bottle bottoms, dishware, bell jars, and embossed glass. Combining such diverse materials lends movement to Maher’s windows and transmits light in interesting ways.

Recently Daniel Maher Stained Glass added Family Portraits to its repertoire. Photographs of family members, friends, or special places are selected and are embedded in the glass panels through a combination of techniques. “It is the most personal kind of commission,” Maher says.

The windows are installed into wood frames or shipped to the jobsite ready for installation. 617.623.8600. www.dmstainedglass.com.

Ornamental Details Just as marquetry has been employed throughout history to embellish wood surfaces with imagery, motifs, or personal symbols, Hudson River Inlay offers the same capabilities for the modern home in its Modern Marquetry medium. Designer Jeff Nelson crafts an array of simple and elaborate designs ranging from classical and traditional to stylized and pictorial in wood and semi-precious stone veneers applied to wood surfaces. “We specialize in naturalism and organic forms,” says Nelson, but the artists in Hudson River’s studio are willing and able to explore designs taken from historical eras. “Our artists are versed across a number of disciplines. We’re happy to explore any number of different styles.”

Clients can choose from the studio’s existing marquetry designs, adapt them to their own preferences, or create entirely custom designs and applications. The studio has completed projects involving interior architectural elements such as moldings, panels, and mantels. Hudson River Inlay utilizes modern technology in the form of digitizers and laser cutting equipment, which allows the studio to accommodate larger projects or work that involves several repeats of the same design.

Artists create the marquetry designs in hardwoods from all over the world, but several domestic woods are popular, such as bird’s-eye maple and quilted maple. Colored veneers are sometimes used, but the natural colorations and grains of the woods are primarily allowed to speak for themselves. Reconstituted stone materials are also utilized, such as malachite, chrysocolla, mica, turquoise, abalone, and mother-of-pearl. “We use the shell materials judiciously,” Nelson says.

“They give a real nice sparkle when the light glints off them. They have a rich shimmer that goes perfectly with wood, and we like to use them for birds’ wings and stars.” 800.369.8146. www.hristudio.com.

Lovely Logs Mesquite’s dimensional stability and its extreme hardness, which is nearly twice that of white oak, make it ideal for a variety of applications in the home, but Mesquite & Hardwood Milling Designs has found a unique one: bathroom sinks.

Each of the studio’s mesquite sinks is carved from a raw log, hand-picked for its potential based on its size and exterior characteristics.

The character of the log, its dark twists and knots, lend the sinks a unique beauty. Each log is stripped of its bark and carved into a basin. The exterior is sanded and polished, then each sink is finished with a wood-penetrating sealant, which over time takes on a cherry color. Drain covers are specifically designed to prevent water from standing next to the wood and are made of solid brass. To coordinate with the popular finishes of bath fixtures, the drain covers come in copper, oil-rubbed bronze, nickel, and brass finishes.

The sinks can be carved with a flat back edge for a wall-mounted installation or with irregular edges for mounting on a stand. The studio offers several stand styles. They can accommodate a deck-mounted or wall-mounted faucet, and can be carved to fit nearly any dimensional specifications. 512.756.0702. www.mhmdesigns.net

Custom Castings After perusing Nathan Allan Glass Studio’s catalog of 44 cast glass textures, several factory colors, and its special collections of colored and textured glass, clients can choose the combination that best suits their custom shower enclosure. Nathan Allan’s studio can produce nearly any shower enclosure configuration using one of its glass textures and can also create custom scenic, pictorial, or abstract designs. “They can choose from designs that we’ve done or bring their own design to the process,” says Barry Allan. “We offer a lot of variety.”

The textured glass is produced in a process called flat casting, in which a flat panel of glass is melted over a mold, then bent and tempered into the correct shape. Color finishes are applied after casting. Shower enclosures use cast glass from ¼ inch thick up to ¾ inch thick, and all panels are safety tempered. The shower enclosures arrive at the jobsite ready to install by a glazing contractor. Nathan Allan can provide the hardware, hinges, and handles as well, for a complete turnkey product.

Because cast glass is non-porous, Allan points out, it is a low-maintenance material that will not absorb dirt. The company’s textures also help to camouflage the soap scum and spots that inevitably build up on shower walls and doors. The top edges of shower enclosures can also be sculpted, chiseled, or broken. 604.277.8533. www.nathanallan.com.