Design and Construction

The design of any project of this nature requires a balance of considerations. The unique nature of this project: a child's bed with a projected sale price of $75,000 required continuous consideration for a balance between the elaborateness of the design and the refinement of the workmanship. The economics look like this: for a given price, the less elaborate the design, the more refinement of workmanship that can be afforded. Granted the asking price necessitates a high level of quality control. However because the bed is intended for a little girl, the degree of refinement required is not the same as if the piece was intended for some one's living room. This consideration is what allowed for the elaborateness of the design that was arrived at. It is the design of the bed and the extraordinary degree of technical difficulty that is overcome in order to accomplish the design that sets this piece apart and grants its value.

My first design objective was to reduce the obviousness of the pumpkin. I sought to create first, the appearance of a carriage, preserving the pumpkin theme more by suggestion and less by solid geometry. I accomplished this by opening up the coach and completing the pumpkin shape above, with lines defined only by the ribs supporting the canopy.

I attempted to preserve whenever possible, the storybook theme of its pumpkin patch origin. To do this, I created a mixture of organic and elegant shapes. The ribs that support the canopy and define the pumpkin's geometry above were carved to depict the deeply ridged stems of pumpkins as they rise up from the voluted window sills.

I made an attempt to incorporate shapes that are familiar to little girls: the hearts that adorn the wheel spokes, the moons supporting the driver's seat and of course, the flower petal canopy. There was originally an intention to elaborate with detail, the butterfly wing shapes that are formed on the sides of the driver's seat. The details were omitted when it became clear that the labor on the project was going to exceed what was reasonable to ask compensation for. As a result, it might require some imagination for some people to recognize the butterflies.

The tear drop shape that forms the entries is also reflected at the drivers seat backrest.

The bulging contours that define the pumpkin shape on the carriage sides represent a stubborn refusal in the design process to compromise the design for sake of managing the technical difficulty of construction. Their successful completion was an accomplishment that would be difficult to duplicate.

The finished product deviates little from the original drawings, except the the canopy was originally drawn as an upholstered reflection of the pumpkin shape that presents below on the carriage. The mock up looked to me like an acorn cap and I replaced it with the flower petal shapes that allowed me to project the canopy outward to overhang the window sills below.

Please feel free to ask if you would like anything else about this bed elaborated on. I plan to write a little bit about the construction of the bed in the next article.

Cinderella Pumpkin Carriage Bed

Introduction:
The Artist:

I would like to welcome everyone to this initial posting on this blog site. First, let me introduce myself; I am Cort Galbreath. I am an artist (using the term loosely and bowing to the many that are more deserving of that title). Quite solidly though, I am a craftsman and a designer of my own work which is unique and deserving of some distinction that separates it from the period furniture that is built from plans and judged by the precision of its square joinery. You can read a succinct self description in my profile.

The Website:
"Sweet Dream Renderings" is a chosen domain name for a website that was created to display and market my own works with the intention eventually including the works of other artists and craftsmen. The site is debuts featuring a single piece; it is the little girls bed pictured, depicting Cinderella's Carriage. You can go there by clicking on the carriage thumbnail.

The Featured Product:
I have intention of writing a series of articles about this bed in hopes of covering any questions that may need to be answered about it. I have chosen to write the first article about the asking price and about the business of woodcraft/art. Some of the feedback that I have received regarding the asking price leads me to believe that the subject deserves to be addressed. I can certainly understand that is unusual to ask the price of a sports car for a little girl's bed.

As a craftsman and perhaps an artist, this project is a noteworthy page in my portfolio. As an entrepreneur, it is just another mediocre showing. I have no history of being a money magnet. Money has never been the point for me. This project, over 2 years in the making, has been perhaps my most ambitious undertaking as a craftsman. My inspiration for this bed came from a picture that my wife found in a Posh Tots catalog. You can view the bed on line. Posh Tots has much better Search Engine Optimization than my site does. Google will find it with your search words and I encourage anyone that might be interested in my piece to visit the site. It is a wonderful catalog. The bed that is featured is made in England. They asked something in the whereabouts of $43,000 for it. Granting them the very limited economies of scale and the cost of retail marketing, my first thought that I could produce a very similar product for less than their asking price. An Internet search produced nothing that competed in the same category which helped me in understanding the price. They had established their product as the best available in its class and were catering to an elite market. My entrepreneurial sense, which is empirically known to be challenged, suggested that I might have a niche waiting for me here. I was excited. I decided that I would not try to produce a product for less but instead, redefine the best available in its class. As usual though, my enthusiasm for a business enterprise has been dulled by cold, hard economics of the real world. My unbridled intent on a more "posh", more elaborate design very quickly translated into hours of labor that were unreasonable to demand compensation for. I capped my asking price at $75,000 knowing that I probably could have made more profit per hour mass producing bird houses and whirligigs. My art is one of the ways that I support my family but the monetary value placed on my time in my studio is, for me, only a way to justify that time to my family. My intrinsic motivation for creative endeavors is more than enough to justify it to myself. I do not require extrinsic compensation to attract me to my studio. The complex geometry of this piece presents an enormous degree of technical difficulty to lay out and construct. The intricate detailing and hand tooling of this bed translates to labor cost that exceeds its asking price. The cost of designing and marketing are very contentedly assumed by me and is compensated intrinsically by the work itself. I am confident that its buyer will be of a class that does not have to choose between a new car and a bed for their little girl.

I invite feedback. If there is anything that you would like to hear more about, please ask. That will be all for now but there will be more to come.