Fine Woodworking's Home Furniture
The Taunton Press

Review by Mark Gezella – September 2004

This month I would like to inform you that we are now the proud owners of a complete set of Home Furniture magazines.  This is a publication originally launched in the winter of 1994 by the folks at Taunton Press.  Thanks to the generosity of members and non-members alike, donations made over time enabled us to gather the entire set spanning the four-plus years of publication.  The magazine had a relatively short lifespan - seems they just couldn't sustain the readership required to cover costs.

I thought this would be a good time to describe the recent additions for two reasons.  First, though we've had the bulk of the collection for awhile, we only recently received the final few missing issues to complete the set. Second, this newsletter follows on the heels of the design presentation given by Ron Diefenbacher.  His entire presentation focused on the same ideals this magazine intended to convey; the critical nature of design, and the general lack of good instruction on how to proceed with the preliminary phase of a furniture project.  Ron gave an excellent overview of how to begin a furniture project from a professional's point of view.  This included a discussion on how to elicit feedback from a client; i.e., how to ask questions to formulate initial impressions about the new piece.  Queries like how a piece will be used, where it will be located, what it should look like (color, texture, style, size, etc.).  If you didn't have a chance to hear Ron at the meeting, you can get a great review of the presentation by reading the August issue of the newsletter.  Jerry and John did a great job, as always.

The idea underlying Home Furniture was a departure from most periodicals of the time.  The intention was to focus specifically on furniture, but not as a "how-to" or instructional magazine.  Instead, the focus was on furniture design and the thought process that should be applied during inception. Articles typically describe varied activities such as methods to stimulate creativity, or thought patterns that serve to conceptualize and foster an evolving concept.  Much consideration is given to the thought process in it's entirety, or at least what it should be in the early stages of a furniture project.

What you won't find in these pages is the stuff typical of woodworking magazines; how to make, use or sharpen tools, how to acquire, dress or joint lumber, joinery used in assembling furniture, etc.  In general, anything that has to do with the specifics of "execution".  This thing is all about "the essence of creation" and the passion that drives one to create objects of beauty, form, and function.  The pieces pictured in these issues speak as much about the artisan as they do the client.  My guess is the publisher recognized these traits in people they interviewed as well as the regular contributors and finally decided it was high time for a product that would stimulate as well as fill a niche of this sort.

Many designer/builder’s are included in each issue.  Many are names you will recognize, others are relative new-comers (or, at least they were ten years ago!).  Quite frankly, this is the stuff that draws me to look through them. There are 20-30 different pieces in each issue, and a given article tends to run from two to three pages.  I find the brevity provides ease-of-use, if you will, for reading through in one sitting, or repeated reading over many different sittings.  I can usually get through an average article in a matter of minutes.  Of course there are exceptions; an article on Krenov in one of the later issues talks about him and his successes for more like ten pages.

As I stated in the beginning, we just received the missing issues that complete the set.  Although published sometime ago, it's exciting to see the entire group on the shelf in our magazine cabinet.  Please feel free to borrow these issues from time to time.  I think you will find they serve as an inspiration for any type of furniture project you may plan to undertake.  The Home Furniture issues are currently available for checkout in the Guild library.