I created the top of the dining table for the Bandy family and matching bench from reclaimed Ponderosa pine boards with lots of milled character. To tie together the darker colors in the living room with the medium wood tones of the floor and another rustic cabinet in the dining room, I opted for a two-tone table, with dark stained Douglas Fir legs and apron and the lighter top. This set coordinated perfectly with the Bandy Doors in the adjoining room which I had previously crafted, utilizing steel structural accents and similar hardware. The clients purchased dark chairs which work great with the rest of the set. And they still send me updates of how much they love this sturdy table for family dinners and games nights.
Tag Archives: Dining
Collette Kitchen
I was brought in by interior designer Shelley Moran to perform some custom renovation work to update a home built in the 90s. Shelley had a vision for the kitchen that involved a major makeover, from common yet transformative moves like painting cabinets, getting new appliances, and replacing countertops, to functional decisions like converting the bookshelf side of an island into a bar. Shelley knew the reputation of Anastasis for quality craftsmanship and problem-solving.
Here, beadboard and a steel footrail complete the transformation.
Another aspect of the kitchen re-do was to create a built-in banquette seating area in an L-configuration for a breakfast nook.
We brought outlets and HVAC forward so they would not be covered by the new banquette.
Finally, I was able to convert all the cabinet doors over from a surface-mount hinge to a hidden, euro-style hinge, and install all new pull hardware. The result is a beautiful, modern farmhouse-style kitchen that used existing elements rather than throw out all the old and bring in new cabinetry.
Biga
Five years ago, in 2012, with the first stage of the Prescott Donut Factory under my belt (before The Warehouse expansion) I had another restaurant project come along that really shaped the way I work and gave Anastasis a lot of needed visibility. That project was Biga, a very small local eatery that quickly garnered a strong following and good buzz about town – for good reason. Original owners Annie and Kristen developed a delicious and morphing seasonal menu which was an eclectic combination of fresh/local and perfectly executed “comfort foods” from around the country.
But it was my job to design and build out the dining room and bar on a shoestring budget. To be honest, I did this project more for the visibility and portfolio-building potential (and the creative freedom to pretty much have carte-blanche, floor to ceiling) than profitability. I was barely started with the business and undervalued my services severely in those days.
So what we were able to pull off for the money was still a major achievement in my book (I was working with a friend at the time.) Biga remains open and popular today under new ownership.
The idea was to take the existing tiny restaurant – an Italian joint whose interior sported a mess of faux-painted walls, trellis, plastic grapes, and other “Tuscan” cliches – and transform it into an urban industrial vibe, as if you had entered an underground machine-shop-turned-hip-drinking-establishment in a major city. Prescott is not a major urban center, and we just don’t have the long-established history of built environment here like you find on the East Coast. So we had to create that blend of “gritty” and fresh new intervention all from scratch.
“Before”
“Before”
“Before”
“Before”
This project was never highlighted on this site, so five years later, it’s about time to bring out these old photographs from just before it was first opened. It was an exciting time, and I’m grateful to the original owners for giving me the opportunity and trusting me to re-create the old restaurant into the unique and exciting space that Biga is known for.
Check out the full gallery below with captions that describe the design elements:
A cast-in-place concrete bar was formed with rough-sawn boards, topped with a steel-and-glass bartop and illuminated with LEDs.
This iconic blue wall defined the space, sloping slightly to serve as the back of the long bench. “Always-on” fluorescent tubes wash the wall in light, so that whether open or closed, the restaurant would always have a glow of life.
A full bar for a tiny restaurant gives patrons a broad range of drink options.
The “blue wall” had a custom paint color mixed – I call it “electric safety blue”
These mechanical steel sun shades were designed to be raised or lowered to break the powerful sun which pours through these windows in the evenings during certain times of the year.
This “butcher-block” style bench was glued up using the same stock of cedar as the form boards for the concrete bar wall.
I came up with a wall-cladding system to hide the existing drywall (without removing it) by using rib lath and veneer stone mortar, to give the impression of something like poured concrete walls, columns, and beams.
Lighting above the bar.
Colored LEDs and “farm lights” illuminate bottles and white subway tile of the back bar.
The bench seating alcove at the blue wall allows for multiple small tables to be pulled together to form a continuous table for larger parties.
The restroom hallway, with lots of heavy, rusty steel.
Industrial “safety” colors continue.
Heavy timbers “bookend” the two sides of the bar.
I love the end grain of these timbers – actually guardrail posts.
Footlighting at the bar gives the sense of the heavy concrete floating.
We made the flooring, too, making planks from thin plywood and using a mix of four different stain colors.
I made this coffee table in the waiting area, as well as all the other table tops from steel and OSB.
The back bar cabinets are laboratory cabinets. They worked great in the space.
Glass and steel bar. Lab stools. I also designed the menu stands (there are no paper menus, just a folded piece of paper clipped to a sheetmetal stand for each table.)
Legacy plant from the old restaurant.
Heavy steel bar shelf and subway tile.
Back bar. Gotta have some diamond plate.
Mortar and steel cladding on the column, and exposed-conduit lighting with “explosion-proof” fixtures.
Steel decking used in the bay window ceiling.
I even made this planter for the window with a found object “dingbat.”
I designed the bar-end to be an illuminated acrylic sign for the window.
View from the outside. A blah exterior hides an impressive interior.
Entry door.
I had these letters laser-cut from frosted acrylic.
Barn Table + Benches
I made two sets of this original design for a table and benches, for The Orchard project in Phoenix. They are composed of reclaimed redwood deck boards. The tabletop is 36 x 96″, with two 72″ benches and two 36″ benches.
SixTop Modular Table
I was challenged to build a table that could seat 12 people at once or break apart for seating pairs at six separate sub-tables. This plywood and steel 6-foot square table now resides in the upstairs room at The Barley Hound, Prescott’s gastropub.
This white wall will be a periodically-changing canvas for different invited artists.
The assembled banquet table seats three to a side.
Clean modern sensibility meets funky old bones (including stained glass) of this historic home on Cortez Street in downtown Prescott, Arizona.
The table with one section removed. The square of tubular steel in the tabletop more than just aesthetic; it is a linkage circuit of sockets and drawbars to hold the assembled table together.
One stand-alone table for two – or more.
Beautiful distressed (semi-restored) wood floor in this very old house-turned-restaurant.
Offset L-shaped legs mimic the fragmented parts of the steel square in the subtables.
Edge-grain plywood with stain.
Barrel Hoop Chandelier
The client had purchased this orb created from four barrel hoops from Revised in Prescott (where I sell some of my work.) I turned this into a dining room fixture with four Midwood vintage bulbs from Brooklyn Bulb Co. and brown rayon-covered cord. The suspension armature for the four bulbs was something I welded up specific for the purpose. This piece is similar to the Orb Lamps I made last year.
Tin Table
The galvanized table top is itself a found object. It was a heat shield to protect the floor from a coal-burning stove in an old farmhouse. This table is for sale now at Revised, the upcycled goods shop I designed in downtown Prescott, Arizona.
Reclaimed wood was used for the table apron.
These spiral legs of unknown origin were salvaged from an old table and reused here.
You can see where the coal stove sat for decades on the heat shield.
Trestle Table Timelapse
Just a 25-second timelapse of part of the construction of the Trestle Table.
Trestle Table
Wolfinger Table
Based on a dining set originally featured through West Elm, this is a labor-intensive and gorgeous pairing created from locally-sourced pallet wood.
Hand-sanded and finished with wax, each piece of reclaimed wood brings its innate character to the family dining experience.
To find out how you can get a similar custom piece created for your home, get in touch below:
anastasis 