Ironworks

One of the two poles moves
to the other bracket, and we can
thread a clothes line through the eyes
for when we want to hang laundry.

(Here's the other bracket). When
we don't have laundry and want to
enjoy the view, the poles stack neatly
beside the chimney.

We have been fortunate to find three different blacksmiths, who do very different work. One of them is doing the basic fall-protection railings, and we haven't had the chance to get to know him. The second is Francesco, who is a real problem-solver. He'll be doing our custom-built vent hood, and has already done our home-designed laundry system. We're hoping that he will bring a structure to support our firewood in the boiler room tomorrow. In other words, he's a technical, structural metal fabricator, and is a fantastic addition to our Rolodex. He's reasonably economical and delivers quite quickly, so we're very much fans of his.


And then there's Marcello. Marcello is a true artist, and is larger-than-life in his expansiveness, his ego, and his fragility. We hired Marcello to create some of the more visible works in the house, as works of art along with meeting the basic needs.

He's a lovely fellow, and has been more than happy to share photos of his work in progress. It's been a real treat to open up my devices to find his latest installments.

For the living room; he chalks the pattern onto the metal
table so he can keep the layout

He has a jig to make these as consistent as possible

More pieces!

He has four or five different jigs for
different sizes of curlicues

A finished leaf

A leaf in progress, plus Marcello

Adding the veining

The first shaping happens under
a hydraulic mallet

Adding curvature

A starting point for leaves

All ready!

And here is the finished product:

There's also the fall-protection grating on the way up the stairs. What used to be vertical prison bars is now this:

Oh! And Marcello also made the shower curtain rod for the guest bath. We wanted something to work with the general flavor of the space, but since the tub is narrowish, I thought we should have the rod curve outwards to give more elbow space while showering.

Love,

Alexandra