Last week, in a moment of fevered DIY insanity, I decided to spend an entire afternoon tricking out our wonky breakfast nook table with mortise and tenon joinery. I found the base of this table in one of Los Angeles’ lesser alleys many years ago and, back when I had higher levels of tolerance for lower levels of craftsmanship, I haphazardly fixed the table with screws and nails.

Making the mortises and tenons took forever even though I was working with power tools–a plunge router to make the mortises and a table saw to cut the tenons. Of course, a great deal of the time in the workshop was spent in idle chatter. My workshop is right on the public sidewalk and serves as a kind of conversational trap for every passing neighbor and dog walker. Kelly suspects that the exchange of neighborhood gossip is the real purpose of the “workshop.” I will neither confirm nor deny this.

But back to the table. Mistakes were made. While routing out one of the mortises I hit a hidden screw resulting in a shower of sparks and a ruined bit. And then there’s those more pressing chores I was ignoring such as fixing broken irrigation lines, finding a decent house painter, rehabbing our forlorn garden etc. Rome is burning and I’m taking the wobble out of a ugly breakfast nook table.

But there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you glue mortises and tenons together. Suddenly, what was just a pile of potential firewood comes together with a solidity that nails and screws simply can’t deliver. You could now park a Hummer on this table which, given we live in Los Angeles, could actually happen.

Fine Woodworking did a stress test of eighteen of the most common joints (article is behind a paywall) used in furniture and found some surprising results. The strongest joint was actually a half lap. It’s not an attractive joint nor would it have worked for my table base.

While the half lap is stronger, Fine Woodworking’s tests vindicated the traditional mortise and tenon over pocket screw joinery (similar to what is used in Ikea furniture). Pocket screws failed under 698 pounds of pressure while a 3/8 inch mortise and tenon was able to sustain up to 1,444 pounds before failing.

Next up, ignoring all those important chores in order to make a fancy new top for the table with some ridiculously time consuming butterfly inlays. I’ll post some pictures of the completed table once the top is done which should be around ten years from now.

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If I had the power to revise architectural history, I’d replace the cold machine aesthetic of Mies Van Der Rohe and Le Corbusier with the quirky, organic and dreamy work of California architect Bernard Maybeck. If you’ve visited Northern California you might have seen a Maybeck building, most likely the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Poet and ornithologist Charles Keeler lived in a Maybeck home. In his book, The Simple Home (which you can read online for free) Keeler says,

The home must suggest the life it is to encompass. The mere architecture and furnishings of the house do not make the man any more than do his clothes, but they certainly have an effect in modifying him. A large nature may rise above his environment and live in a dream world of his own fashioning, but most of us are mollusks, after all, and are shaped and sized by the walls we build around us.

The Simple Home is a book length ode to the work of Maybeck and, alas, a manifesto for an architectural road not taken. Somehow we ended up with a world full of parking garages and mini malls.

Let me, at this point, note that Keeler has the best ever author photo:

Maybeck also had a good publicity photo:

Is it time to bring back the smock? But I digress. Here’s Keeler’s library, designed by Maybeck:

Maybeck made masterful use of redwood, sometimes as in a simple way and at other times in an elaborate neo-gothic style as in the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Berkeley:

And if you know what this building is please let me know:

Both Maybeck and Keeler envisioned a paradisaical California of intertwined gardens and homes:

Keeler’s words and Maybeck’s architecture are just as relevant today as they were in the early 20th century.

Lastly, a programming note: my computer problem turned out to be nothing more than a bad power strip, thankfully. Regular blogging and podcasting will return soon.

Last week a very capable and talented crew spent two days replacing our kitchen floor. We chose the same material: linoleum tiles made by Forbo. We returned to this material for two reasons: it’s historically appropriate for our 98 year old house and we like the more muted and natural colors of Frobo’s linoleum line. And we also found out that the kitchen floor of the Gamble House was recently redone with Forbo linoleum.

“Linoleum” has become a generic term associated with all kinds of sheet flooring materials, but real linoleum refers to a product made with solidified linseed oil, wood flour. Forbo’s product is backed with jute.

Fifteen years ago I installed the linoleum in our kitchen myself. This was a big mistake. Installing a floor like this is a highly skilled job best left to professionals. The crew, certified by Forbo, did a much better job getting the tiles snug, while leaving room at the edges (covered by quarter-round molding) for expansion. They also sealed and buffed the floor.

While the installation I did looked good for a few years, the details I missed (using the wrong sealing products and poor maintenance) led to stains and peeled tiles. Some things I learned:

• Forbo linoleum should be dry mopped with a special Forbo cleaner. We were wet mopping and this caused the floor to peel up prematurely.
• The floor should be stripped, sealed and buffed every 1 to 3 years (every year if you have pets or heavy traffic).
• The subfloor needs to be completely flat. The crew used a thin cementitious material to level the floor. Linoleum is not very flexible and will crack if the floor isn’t flat.

Properly maintained, linoleum should outlast vinyl flooring and, in my opinion, it looks a lot better.

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