20-10-2016
It is useful if you know in advance how high the bar is set. We have now discovered that changing almost everything in the shop and showroom means absolute chaos. Nothing is where is should be any more and nobody knows what they are doing. This time we started in plenty of time. There is definitely a good feeling about the activities and planning. I was the most sceptical, for a change. Two days before the start of DDW, it all began to take shape and it now seems that the good feeling everybody had was not misplaced.
The biggest job was the complete construction of an interior that we made in 1998 and that is now available due to relocation. The reconstruction was always an irrational issue because nobody would need that specific interior. And yet the reason to invest in something, which is almost a building within our showroom, was that we are asked more and more often whether we will take back objects from customers in order to find them a new owner. These are often objects that have been commissioned by customers especially for their working environment. The interior of the philosopher Jos Kessels, with a raw pine oval table made especially for him and stainless steel desk with separate drawer units, is flanked by communicating window units that we made for professor Tissen and a cartoon display table that we crafted especially for Gerrit de Jager. Long live our products!
The recycling of our own products is perhaps the most exceptional story of this DDW. But this does not detract from the fact that our efforts in almost all areas have taken on almost mythical proportions. The bottle lamps we have made and that will hang in the restaurant tomorrow are, from a commercial point of view, as irrational as the rebuilding of the philosopher’s interior. Not everyone likes them and they are almost impossible to incorporate into an interior. Nevertheless, we have a small group of fans that cannot wait until the invasion of the fleet of bottle spaceships in the restaurant is a fact.
‘The new kitchen’
On Friday afternoon or evening, a new kitchen will also be fitted in the showroom (the name of the kitchen is the new kitchen). This kitchen is actually not designed in the sense that there is a logical thought behind it. It is much more an accumulation of functions, colours and materials. The kitchen as object, in such a way that it dos not create a clear picture.
Cube scrap wood tile cupboards
The cube scrap wood tile cupboards are made from tiles as we presented them last April during the Salone in Milan. This time, however, the tiles are square and so are the cupboards. The cubes with three drawers or one drawer can be placed alongside or on top of each other. The hidden handle, which we introduced for the enormous beam cabinets, remains virtually untraceable through the grout of the tiles.
Series oldlampshadestealights
After discovering in April that the oldlampshadestealights sell so well, we purchased an enormous number of old shades. We are now showing the lion’s share of these. Sometimes there is just one, sometimes a few and every now and then dozens. It is, for us, a large number of unique products.
NYC water barrels furniture
We just couldn’t wait with a project that actually isn’t a project yet. Together with Diederick Kraaijeveld, we ordered a container full of water barrel wood from New York. He is going to use it to make paintings and we will make furniture. We will then jointly present the work
in the showroom, where our furniture is normally displayed. A lot of transport, you might think, but the idea is to ultimately have the furniture made in New York so that the wood, which is now always discarded, is reused locally.
When we finally received the container full of wood, I couldn’t wait to get started. The barrels are made mainly of cedar wood, a wood that is very moisture and weather proof and very lightweight. In short, an ideal material for making structures on roofs.
The as-wide-as-thick-table and chairs, made from oak, which we launched in April, will now gain a little cedar bother in the form of an armchair. The width of the wood is almost the same width of the beams, whereby the patina of time remains visible on the roofs. We will also make a dresser with the cedar wood and by taking the beams, which vary in size, as starting point, and adjusting every cupboard accordingly, we will discard as little material as possible.
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