Twelve Companies Merit Honorable Mentions

Design Portfolio judges hand out awards to the following dozen companies.

Woodworker: Browne Architectural Millwork Inc., Easton, MD Category: Residential Furniture Project: Breakfast bar Materials Used: Solid Honduras mahogany is used in the piece along with mahogany plywood, veneers and edgebanding.Veneers and veneered panels came from Sieling & Jones Inc. A Medex waterproof MDF insert is used around the sink. Construction Details: The piece is designed to be a period breakfast bar while functioning as a modern wet bar. A hidden system of ventilation channels under and behind the cabinet were required to ventilate the refrigerator. The divided lite glass doors were especially labor-intensive, each consisting of 156 pieces of solid mahogany, plus the face and balancing veneers.

Woodworker: European Design, Scottsdale, AZ Category: Commercial/Institutional Furniture Project: Jewelry by Gauthier Bar Materials Used: Bubinga and fiddleback anigre veneers from Certainly Wood were used in the project, along with brushed aluminum from Formica. Construction Details: Difficulties in the project involved mixing the different materials along with the stainless steel top and making sure everything fit perfectly, says Allan Rosenthal, owner. The suspended light bridges add to the piece’s appeal, he adds.

Woodworker: Taylor Made Custom Cabinetry, Palmyra, NJ Category: Residential Furniture Project: Media center/display unit Materials Used: The unit is made of hard maple with mouldings from AI Millwork and White River and appliques from Raymond Enkeboll. The finish consists of Autumn Haze stain, white glaze and satin lacquer topcoat, all from Guardsman. Cabinet doors came from the Cabinet Factory. Construction Details: The outside lighted display cabinets have beveled glass doors and applied flutes and corbels. A modified Salice thick door hinge allows the 2-1/4-inch doors to open to 125 degrees. The top and bottom doors of the center section are joined together with the countertop moulding to create a door 27 inches wide by 9-1/2 feet high by 2-1/2 inches thick. This was achieved by combining six Accuride hinges and a piano hinge on a follower strip.

Woodworker: Industrial Design Form Corp., Coconut Grove, FL Category: Commercial/Institutional Furniture Project: Furniture for a construction firm headquarters Materials Used: Solid maple wood and veneer was used in the lateral units, solid cherry and plywood was used in the central unit, and sapele veneer was used in front of the central unit. Glass and halogen lights helped to achieve a sense of deepness. Construction Details: The central door opens vertically, achieved through a rolling system. Luis Lozada, president, says that the door’s hydraulic system and the crossed design of the veneer are the most unusual aspects of the project.

Woodworker: Southern Architectural Woodwork, Columbia, SC Category: Commercial/Institutional Furniture Project: Boardroom table Materials Used: The table has quartered black mottled anigre veneer, with flat sawn hard maple at the edge. A solid brass inlay separates the anigre and maple. Construction Details: The table is 8 feet wide by 28 feet long, and is made up of 14 different sections, each with its own base, on casters. The pieces can be used separately or joined as one large table. The pieces also had to be made to rotate to the vertical position to fit through narrow doorways.

Woodworker: DeSantis Designs Inc., Herndon, VA Category: Solid Surface Project: Gaming table Materials Used: The table itself is made of lacewood, maple, ebony and brass with Corian solid surface inlays. The chips are made of purpleheart, bloodwood and maple. Construction Details: The border of the table is solid mahogany with brass-bordered openings, so the chip holders can flip over to create a flat surface. The playing cards are inlaid into the surface with Corian resins. DeSantis Designs also made 1,600 poker chips to go with the table.

Woodworker: Mr. O’s Cabinet Shop Inc., North Canton, OH Category: Architectural Millwork Project: Millwork for Century Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Cleveland Materials Used: The figured anigre veneer used in the project was laid up by Custom Plywood Inc. of New Albany, IN. Construction Details: The original building was a train station, and all the original brass accents were reworked, repolished and occasionally resized to fit the new millwork. Mr. O’s provided all of the figured anigre panels in the job, which were chevron matched for the entire job. The company also made the custom-profile maple base and crown mouldings.

Woodworker: Southern Architectural Woodwork, Columbia, SC Category: Architectural Millwork Project: Corporate headquarters for health care services provider Materials Used: The millwork for the headquarters required quartered redwood veneers, quarter sawn redwood lumber and flat cut Swiss pearwood veneers. Construction Details: The doors presented a particular challenge, because they have both a vertical and horizontal face in an interwoven pattern. The company made two separate door faces, one horizontal and one vertical, then cut them on a CNC router and alternated the pieces on the door.

Woodworker: The Terraza Design Group Inc., Long Beach, CA Category: Architectural Millwork Project: Private theater Materials Used: The Terraza Group used sapele pommele, Macasser ebony and rift maple veneers for this theater, purchased through David R. Webb Co. Construction Details: “We sought to deliver a project that featured perfectly sequenced-matched panels all around the room,� says Phillip Lucero, president. “The scope of the work included pairs of columns that needed to be sequenced matched also. The trick was to set up the sequencing such that the wainscot and columns were matched throughout the room, no matter where the viewer was standing in the theater.�

Woodworker: John Costin Studio, Kennebunkport, ME Category: Specialty Products Project: Psyché a Trois Feuilles (elliptical folding mirror) Materials Used: The mirror is built of Swiss pearwood veneer on MDF and basswood. The finish is a hand-rubbed, opaque, cream-colored lacquer. Construction Details: “The radius of the ellipse at the edge is too small to form using bent lamination,� says principal John Costin. “Therefore, the piece is made using a combination of very old and very new techniques.� The core and top section were hand-shaped from solid wood staves and then veneered in a vacuum bag from Vacuum Pressing Systems.

Woodworker: E.H. Waldman Art & Furniture Studio, Shawnee Mission, KS Category: Laminate Casework Project: Curved cabinet Materials Used: The cabinet structure is MDF and lauan benderboard, with a surface of high-pressure laminate from ARPA-Interlam. The unit features an acrylic mirror and glass door. Construction Details: The cabinet measures 97 inches tall. The curved structure created several challenges, including developing a structure that wouldn’t wobble or twist, designing the door operation, and lining up shelf pin holes on two different radius sizes.

Woodworker: Old Dominion Woodworks Inc., South Boston, VA Category: Kitchen/Bath Cabinets Project: Cherry kitchen cabinets Materials Used: Finished ends are constructed with 3/4-inch cherry veneer panels with applied moulding to match doors. Lauan was used for unfinished tops, bottoms, interior ends and backs. Drawer boxes are dovetailed with 5/8-inch solid red oak sides and lauan bottoms. Construction Details: A 22-inch raised cabinet was designed around the main work station of the island. The center front of the bar top steps in 22 inches, creating a bar top. The back of a brick fireplace is covered with mitered flat panels with hand turnings. In a limited area by the exterior door, Old Dominion added two 12-inch-deep lighted cabinets for display areas.