An Angle on Shelving

Annecy, France

Kale Vogt
July 21, 2025

I’m back to work for the first time in two weeks. Over the past 15 days my partner and I explored Paris with family, rode a train through the Swiss alps, witnessed an unusual amount of turtles in Rome and ate our body weight in carbs in the Tuscan countryside.

And now I’m here, sitting at my desk at Anthe – lighter, clear-headed, inspired and hungry to create again.

Even with my newfound mental space, there is one thing that has consistently been taking up precious real estate in my mind – even before our European getaway: my final apprenticeship chair.

I’ve intentionally procrastinated on breaking ground on my final chair until my return from vacation, in hopes that post-trip I’d have the proper creative energy to focus on my design.

Jordan and me at the Colosseum.

Although I’m hardly ever focusing on just one project at a time, the gravity I feel from designing my final apprenticeship chair is weighing on me. It’s been difficult to not feel pressure from designing my first chair from scratch. Because of this, I’ve kept the remainder of July and all of August free from time away so I can focus and experiment in the shop. After building at least 10 (?) chairs now, making one directly from my own ideas will be a new bandage to rip off.

The ideas I have now are still blurry; I need to work out proportions in real life in order for my vision to fully form. Because of that, I won’t be sharing any ideas with you today.

So before I delve into chair mode, I’m hoping to finish a “smalls” project that’s been taking up space on my bench for all too long (more on this project below the paywall.) It’s a three-tiered wall shelf that I, dare I say, will be using a router on.

The router is for minor design choices that aren’t crucial to the build whatsoever (so if you choose to build this project after the book comes out, you don’t have to use a router). It was Chris who decided that it was time for me to learn the ways of the router, and I was happy to oblige. I have little touching up to do before I can route and paint my way to the finish line of this project. This week should provide more than enough time to do those things.