My chair plan

A question has been raised on the yahoo groups medieval encampments list regarding appropriate furniture for a late period, French, encampment.

I have been looking at extant examples of portable furniture from that period and have found variations of this chair from both England and Spain. I haven't looked at French furniture yet, but I suspect they also have a variation. (FYI, I took a brief look at French furniture yesterday and the form--"Caquetoire Garnie"-- does appear.) Some versions seem to collapse by removing the spreader bars between the sides, others may add or substitue hinges in the spreader bars, and some versions add hinges or other joints halfway down the legs for an additional point of collapse.

I'll add detail of my sources ASAP (NOTE: sources now added), but in the meantime I wanted to share my sketch-up model of a type of chair which I have never seen in my (admittedly limited) experience of SCA camping. To wit,

the Friar's (Monk's) chair

As usual, if you click on the picture it will take you to sketch-up where you can pivot the view or download the model to tinker with.

Folding sillon frailero of walnut (sixteenth century)

Musee Episcopal, Vich. Bacelona. "as in many early examples, the frame can be dismounted." From "Furniture Past & Present, L. Boger, Doubleday, 1966












Folding sillon frailero (sixteenth century)

Spanish Interiors and Furniture: Photographs and Drawings, Arthur Byne and Mildred Stapley, William Helburn, Inc. 1921

More about Sketch-up

I just discovered that if you go to look at my designs on the sketch-up page you don't *have* to download an object to be able to see the entire circumference.

If you look in the upper right-hand corner of the picture frame there are two buttons "Image" and "3-D View". Clicking the 3-D View button just let me pivot the trailer so I could see all the sides.

Cool.

Downloading the trailer will let you actually go *inside* to take a look around there too.

(BTW, Sketch up items are shared by their creators to be *used.* Which means that you can tinker with things and make your own creation. I started my Tudor trailer plan by finding someone else's 7'X14' trailer to base my work on. Just like I would if I built it for real.)

But I'll get off my little "sketch-up is so cool!" soapbox for now.

My Tudor Trailer

Last summer I learned about the existence of a free downloadable 3-d modeling program (google sketchup 3-d) and started working on a plan for my dream portable house for SCA Camping.

I decided to complete my pavilion instead--for a variety of practical reasons, including the fact that I could work on it thru the winter in our heated house instead of trying to work in the frozen garage--but I still LOVE my trailer plan so I am sharing it with you here.

Aurora's 7x14' Tudor Trailer (Plan/Visualization)

It will have both a queen size bed and an additional sleeping berth/daybed, a "working" fireplace (canisters of gel fuel only), an outdoor kitchen based on drawers which pull out from under the bed, and both a woodpile and stone water trough to cover the wheels.

I love-love-love it!

I based the shape on various other pop-up SCA trailers I have been studying on-line. The intricacy of detail is based on extant examples of historic housing, notably:

Staple Inn, Holburn, London, England














and

Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire, England














For those of you who are wondering about the trailer details just click on the picture to go to sketch-up where you can download it and wander about (it's a 3-d model, remember?) to your heart's content.

Hmmm.....

The Plan















So I'd been thinking it would be nice to upload my sketchup version of the Pavilion so that people can see where I am going...of course it was at home and I was at work but I uploaded a draft version (too tall, not wide enough, etc) so that I could see if I can get it to work...

and...

Ooo! Success!

Then I went home and figured out how to capture an image of the project, as well as uploading the real deal into Google sketchup 3d. if you follow the link by clicking on the picture you can download my plan and tinker with it to your hearts content--though I warn you that I am still learing how to use sketchup and I tend to just keep adding planes until the thing looks right when I've gotten things a bit...off.