Arts and Crafts Couch

I really enjoy the clean and unadorned look of A & C furniture. I like the sturdy nature of the draw bored tenons. I really like the look of quarter sawn white oak. (my favorite woods are still cherry and walnut). I made a bowed arm Morris chair a number of years ago and my plan was always to match that chair with a couch. I made the couch and it is now in the front room of our home.

 The upholstery was done by a local shop. The material was a leather LIKE material. I can not afford real leather.
The little table to the left of the couch was a Limbert table that I built a year ago. The computer chair is the only thing left in this room that was not built by myself. 

 This is a picture of the draw bores holding the tenons.

 This is a picture of my chair that I constructed totally by hand a few years ago. I used power tools to make the couch but hand tools to finesse the fit of the mortice and tenon joints.

This is a close up of the couch side. There are double tenons on the front rail. The draw bore is on the back side so as not to be visiable from the front. 

 On the back of the couch, is the cloud lift. In the picture above, you can also see a lift on the lower front rail.

The construction of the couch is pretty straight forward. There were 15 stub tenons on the back. The horizontal rails are the only tenons that are draw bored.

I hope that you like the work that I have done. It is a ball to work in this medium and have the support of such a good wife. I need to learn upholstery because it is so expensive. I gulped at the $1000 price tag for the cushions, but Karen and I both agree that the resulting furniture was worth the effort and cost.

This is a cut away of a draw bored tenon. A hole is drilled through the mortise. An offset hole is then drilled in the tenon. When the dowel is driven through the drilled hole, it draws the tenon in tight to the piece. The deformed dowel looks weak, but in reality, it is extremely strong.