My handmade perfume organ. The lower part of it was made by cutting a single plate of wood. I've been looking for my sketch but I still can't find it.
I wish I could show it to you, though it was just a life-sized image drawn by hand on connected graph papers.
I needed to draw a big curved line, so I tied a string to a pencil and used it as a compass.
It was tough to build the whole desk, so I used a writing bureau as a body of the perfume organ. I looked for a small, beautiful antique
bureau but I couldn't find one in Japan.
I searched on a net, and I found one that perfectly matched my image at a furniture store in Boston. At that time the internet was not widely used so when I finally found it through trial and error, I was so delighted.
It was 15 years ago and I don't clearly remember how I ordered it but somehow I purchased it
from the store ,and with a transportation company I arranged to have it sent to my friend's house in Boston ,then shipped from there to Japan.
However, I received an estimate from one of the biggest transportation companies, of
[Huge] yen- for shipping cost only. I was so shocked!
So again I turned to my friend for help and ended up having it shipped in a container of an import company. That reduced shipping costs a lot.
I measured the length inside the writing bureau, drew a line on the graph paper according to the size. Bought woods at a DYI store nearby, had them cut at the same size to match the sketch... I couldn't possibly cut them home like they did.
I was able to add a sensitiveness by using relatively thin plates.
If you are a DIY person you can probably guess, but these stands where we put bottles, will become one wood panel when you take them to pieces.
Lastly, I applied varnish of deep rosewood color to both the writing bureau and the shelf.
Checked if the shelves could fit into the body of the bureau.
I was like "Wow!" when they fit perfectly into each other.
Putting fragrance bottles one by one, and it was like a dream come true,
the perfume organ looked elegant and exactly the way I had imaged.
I started with creating an image, then selected materials, placed an order, drew a sketch and assembled wood pieces...
This is my handmade organ but I couldn't have made it without my friends' help.
To be continued...