The best kind of surprise: More Dark Horse work featured on dwell.com

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We love the concept of recycling, especially when it involves Dwell magazine taking beautiful photos of our work from past feature stories and including them in new stories on dwell.com.

First up: In “How to Design with Mahogany,” posted on February 20, Dwell featured the mahogany cabinets we created for the Oakview house, which was originally featured in the story “An Angular Futuristic House in Georgia” in 2013. (You can read more about that Dwell story on our blog and see a lot of great photos from the project in our gallery feature.)

Dwell’s introduction to the February feature sings the praises of mahogany:

Every variety of wood has its own personality. Rich yet restrained, mahogany is a soothing presence. Here’s how seven modern homes put it to use.

We share Dwell’s appreciation for mahogany (as you’ll see if you browse through our work), and we’re honored to be included in this gallery.

Bonus detail: The mahogany used for these cabinets — and all of the cabinetry in the Oakview home, including a cool Murphy bed — was rescued from the cancelled US Navy PT Boat program.

Spotlight on modern bathrooms

The second instance of Dwell admiring our work enough to mention it twice is also drawn from Dwell’s original feature article on the Oakview home.

This time around, it was eye-catching bathroom cabinetry that made it into a slideshow feature.

“Modern Bathroom Design, Remodeling, and Decor Ideas” opens this way:

Browse beautiful and innovative bathroom designs from the pages of Dwell and get inspiration for your own bath tile, toilet, bathtub, bath sink, and shower

Here’s the “slide” featuring one of the bright Oakview bathrooms:

(We do need to correct one important detail on this one: The brilliant-red floating vanity and powder-coated steel top are Dark Horse originals. The sink is made by Kohler.)

Thanks for the kudos, Dwell — feel free to feature our work any time!

Our star turn in Dwell magazine

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Main kitchen area

Main kitchen area

If you’re looking for proof that your creations can hold their own with the best of the best, landing a mention in Dwell magazine isn’t a bad start.

Dwell focuses on Modernist design and what it says about its mission/approach squares up with the way the Dark Horse team approaches design:

 “At Dwell, we’re staging a minor revolution. We think that it’s possible to live in a house or apartment by a bold modern architect, to own furniture and products that are exceptionally well designed, and still be a regular human being. 

“We think that good design is an integral part of real life. And that real life has been conspicuous by its absence in most design and architecture magazines. … we want to demonstrate that a modern house is a comfortable one. That today’s best architects are able to fashion environments that are at once of the moment and welcoming.”

Dark Horse landed in this respected magazine because of an amazing project we worked on not long ago: The Oakview home, a “futuristic” (as Dwell called it) project by architecture firm Dencity Design.

Dwell highlighted one aspect of our work, a set of floating bookshelves, but Dark Horse created all of the cabinetry in the house, including the modern kitchen, as well as bathroom vanities in eye-popping colors. We also built miscellaneous features such as a balcony railing, mudroom lockers, and a wall of storage cabinets in the guest room that makes the most of the space by incorporating a Murphy bed.

Solid walnut railing.

Solid walnut railing.

If you’d like to see more of this cool house, check out the Dwell article and take a look at the rest of our cabinetry work for the Oakview project in our gallery.

As always, we appreciate the support of our clients and friends.

~ Chris and the Dark Horse team

It’s always nice to be recognized by our peers …

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The island is made from walnut that was stained, distressed, glazed and then top-coated with clear lacquer.At Dark Horse, we’re rewarded for our work all the time, in a couple of ways. First and foremost, we make a living through the projects we build, which is no small thing, of course.

Second – and I think the Dark Horse staff would agree with me on this – we’re rewarded by the satisfaction we have at the end of a project. You can’t beat the feeling you get from seeing an idea transformed into a tangible piece of furniture or set of cabinetry. It’s doubly satisfying for us because we pride ourselves on the details – including a lot of the things the new owner will never notice.

But it’s also pretty exciting when we’re rewarded by being singled out by our peers. This year, the Cabinet Makers Association honored Dark Horse with two major national awards. The Dark Horse team and I believe that the recognition validates the time and attention to detail that go into every one of our projects.

We won a first-place Wood Diamond award in the Kitchen Euro Over $25K category for our Friar Tuck project, which featured rift-sawn oak veneer and required extensive grain-matching. The biggest challenge by far in the project was getting the grain on the veneer to line up all the way around the 18-foot island.

Other details: In the upper drawers that the clients were going to use for utensils, we built a secondary tray that is pulled open when the main drawer is opened. This tray is attached with rare-earth magnets that can easily be pushed out of the way to access less frequently used items.

Our second CMA award was a first-place Wood Diamond in the Kitchen Face Frame Over $25K category for the Lanbrook project. This house had extreme height changes in both the floor and ceiling as well as walls that were not plumb – to an extreme degree (probably the worst I’ve ever worked on).

The island is one of the components I’m most proud of. The floor in the area of the island was off-kilter more than one inch from right to left – forcing us to build parts of it onsite and then return to the shop to complete it. This painstaking process helped ensure that everything would be level and the unevenness would be as invisible as possible when we installed the island.

We’re proud to have been recognized, but we’re equally grateful to our clients. Without people who value craftsmanship enough to give their business to Dark Horse instead of making a visit to the instant-gratification furniture showrooms and discounters, we wouldn’t have a livelihood, much less an award.

Thank you.

~ Chris and the Dark Horse team