#adirondack rustic

[oaklandathletics]

Hilda Feenstra

[noelyely]

Study room idea: a sizable rustic built-in desk

Mill Pond Shops

[lpostrustics]

Adirondack Aquatic Sideboard

Leave it to Jillian to think up the best ideas for furniture to compliment her wonderful hand carvings.  For speculation pieces, she decides what would be the most enjoyable subject matter to carve.

  Summer afternoons often find the Post family retreating to our family lakeside property nestled in a quiet resource management area within the thick forest of the Adirondacks.  Oftentimes, its just a few hours of swimming or kayaking on the 20 acre pond.  Happy times are spent there.  So, we decided to create a piece of furniture that would allow us to share these memorable moments.    

This is the sideboard--the overall shape.  The lake scene is an oil painting by Joann.  The carvings, of course, are by Jillian.  We used cherry, burls, driftwood, cedar flares, birch bark and twigs.

The wood we chose for the top is flamed cherry.  Sometimes called quilted cherry.  This figured pattern reminds us of ripples on the water.  The driftwood log was pulled out of the lake.  As one approaches painted turtles, no matter how quietly one paddles near, they always alarm and drop into the water from their sun basking--plop plop plop.  They then dive down and disappear into the muddy pond bottom.  These guys are on their way in.  

The bigger turtle has his leg submerged into the cherry ripples.

Lily pads and dragonflies adorn this pillar. 

Water lilies float on the cherry sideboard top.

We picked beaver chewed sticks from the water in the spring.  Once they dried, Jillian carved the opposite ends to look like they also were chewed by beaver.  Then, they became the handles on the drawers and central door.  I can’t tell which ends the beaver made.

This was a joyful creation for our family.  Art that truly made us happy.