Yeah, so July has come and gone. Such is the summer. With some travel and weddings and beach and all that stuff, was a bit quiet, but now have a number of posts and projects in the hopper. Watch. Out.

I'll be at By Brooklyn on Saturday, August 20th from 2-5pm hawking my wares. Mark your calendars. Come on by and say hello, take a board for a spin and julienne a carrot, and check out some of my newest products.

The first 10 who come in and who like Gowanus Furniture on Facebook will get a free 6 oz. can of my new Cutting Board Ointment. Keeps any cutting board or kitchen woodenware healthy and happy - feels great, smells great, and can even be used as a lip balm.

Speaking of new stuff, here's a sample of what I think is the most beautiful board yet to come out of Gowanus Furniture. The pic is super lousy (new camera next week, YAY!), but the walnut is absolutely extraordinary. And it has a built in stainless steel board scraper. See it / feel it / smell it in person on 8/20. More pics of prototypes on Facebook.

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Nice little feature today on Krrb!

Krrb, if you don't know, is really cool way to find stuff for sale/trade/free nearby (get it, "curb"?) - and not just a list of results, but stuff from real people, all in your neighborhood. Check them out, good folks...

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Here's a great piece to keep on file from esteemed designer Milton Glaser.

"Less is not more.... Just enough is more."

His 10 Things I Have Learned is just enough. Keep it on file. Pull it out every now and then and re-read. Repeat. Hat tip to @brainpicker.]]>

Here's the latest.  It's 6/4 walnut, joined with a maple spline, with some aluminum. Holds you bike with aplomb.

You can see inside the space between the two "U" shaped notches that holds the top tube, there's a rectangle of aluminum.

As for the other two pieces of aluminum, I'd planned on bending it around the wood, but I couldn't get the corners sharp enough without the aluminum snapping. So I mitered the aluminum, and that's (more than) a bit sloppy. It's not a fine metal, stainless steel would have been better (but not without it's own challenges). There's really just too much metal on this, looking at it now. This bike rack was supposed to be about a great piece of walnut, and the aluminum is painfully distracting.

But in my head / on paper / as a model, it seemed so perfect.

Design is an iterative process.

The lip on the front was intended to complement the shape of the opening for the top tube, but it doesn't really do it for me. Makes me think "bird beak", and that wasn't the intention.  The next version will have a simple, gentle, convex curve.

Above you can see the maple spline and a little notch on the top side of the joint. I think without the aluminum, the contrast between the maple and walnut will look much better and the spline would look amazing.
Regarding that notch on the top portion - here's where it gets interesting:

Imaging a whole wall of (non-aluminum-clad) shelves that all interlock, with the bottom lip fitting into the top notch, going up and down and across the wall. Bookshelves, bike racks, and smaller shelves that fit under a bike rack shelf and inside the bike frame. Different widths and depths that allow you to customize your own storage system for your needs, and reconfigure it when you move.

That's all coming down the pike. This basic idea, but it needs to be stripped down.

Let me know what you think.

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...was nice.

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I'm off to the beach. Have a great weekend filled with meats and non-regulation-flag-cakes. Next pictures - at long last - of the completed bike rack...

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This pile of stuff will soon be two wall-mounted bike racks. One similar in spirit to a previous version, the other will work for women's bikes or mixte frames. Yeah.  Really. And solid walnut- no injection-molded plastic anywhere...

Also in the picture below is a small shelf that will sort of interlock with one of the bike racks. I'm looking to do a whole shelving system that accommodates bikes, books, booze, or any other charming non-alliterative ephemera.

A picture is worth at least 1K words. Stay tuned. More in-process pics to be posted to Facebook.

If you like what you see, you can WIN your choice of bike rack at The Wonder City Book Release at the Bell House on Wednesday, June 29th.

Hope to see you there!

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