This gate is a driveway gate for a home in Vancouver WA. The owner of the gate had seen us at the Salem Art Festival for 3 years in a row and fell in love with a small gate that is pictured in my first post. I started with that small gate pattern and then stretched it out a bit, I added about 30" more in length and about 20" taller for each side. Each gate that we do is custom, because everyones opening is usually different. Sometimes clients like a certain gate and then build their opening to fit the gate. This next gate has a home in Portland OR with a very nice family that said they had been looking for a gate for a few years for just the right gate. They found us at the NW Flower and Garden Show and decided that this was the gate that they had been waiting for. This gate is an art gate--meaning that it is there mainly for esthetics, it's not going to keep your dog in the yard (we have heard this comment at least 200 times, that's a conservative estimate according to Steve). It has a really nice powder coat, this is a baked on heavy duty powdered paint, the color is 'Copper Vein'. My personal favorite gate so far that we have installed is this next one, called 'The Dance of the Dragonflies". The client said, "The gate was the highlight to an already strong courtyard". The house is the industrial look and the walls around the courtyard were gray smooth cement. The gate softened the gray concrete and also gave the gate an understated background which just let the gate shine. The measurements on this gate is 41" wide x 70" tall. A wonderful couple! 'The Falling Leaf' gate measures about 50" wide and 64" tall, it sits in a beautiful garden near Lake Washington. We are designing a railing for this client, which will have a plant theme. The asymetrical posts were a first for us, but I love them. This style of gate was in a designers garden in the NW Flower and Garden Show, it blew me away to see this mounted between two huge columns of granite, just beautiful. The garden was also very cool with a floating bed in the middle of a pond, wow. The owners are a very nice couple, who are very patient with us, thanks Bruce and Maria!

If I was asked what my favorite hobby is, it would have to be making glass beads and putting them into jewelry. I have been making beads off and on for about 3 years, definitely more off than on. I am striving to get better. I take a great silver jewelry class during the school year. The teacher is Russ Lunders with Centralia Community College. He is a great teacher, I was in his first College class that he gave, I think about 4 years ago. He is a retired highschool teacher, he taught silver jewelry making, I wish I would have had a chance to take a class like that when I was in highschool...unfortunately they ended the program when he retired. But fortunately for us, the school gave him the equipment and we are now using it! I have a couple torches set up at home, one large one to make beads with and a little torch for soldering jewelry. I also have a kiln with a computerized controller to anneal the beads, I also can fuse glass in it. Pictured are some of the bracelets that I have made for friends and family. Fun stuff!

Whitefish Montana ahhh, what a beautiful place. Our client was building a very special home there. They are a wonderful couple, one of the nicest couples that I have had the pleasure of meeting. They wanted a very unique and artful home. Much of the home is decorated with furniture that she designed herself and had built to her specifications. The little gate to the left is the "Dance of the Dragonflies". If you look closely you can see the latch on the right is a dragonfly also. This gate was located in the front of the home, in front of a small courtyard, next to the main entry of the home. The courtyard is just off the main dining area for the home. Each element of the home was very carefully thought out. One stand out feature is the master bath, it has a tub that was a huge boulder of granite. It was sliced in half and hollowed out and smoothly polished, it is placed in front of a large picture window with a breath taking view of Flathead Lake. The house is situated on a hillside, so you can see for miles, beautiful! I think I could live comfortably in the masterbath, with the addition of a bed and microwave which would fit in there with no problem. At the first meeting that we had with our client she wanted us to fabricate two gates, a railing for the stairway, and a huge--10'x10' arched piece to suspend from the ceiling in their entryway. Ok, I'll say it...the RAILING really scaird me. Getting angles right, you have to be really exact, and I thought perhaps she might want something that was made by a blacksmith, something with a little more dimension. We decided that we would do the gates and the 10'x10' piece. I wasn't scaird anymore, and Steve was all along saying that we could do it and I shouldn't be scaird. Well, the client met with a blacksmith and then, next thing I new, we were doing the railing! Woo Hoo...I'm scaird. Ok, a little voice said, "trust me, we can do this," or maybe that was Steve...yeah that was Steve...anyway, I trusted that Steve could get all the angles right and knew what the heck he was doing, I knew that I could handle the design elements, but Steve figured out all the angles and made all of the outside dimensions and then I just filled it with plant designs. I worked for hours and hours just finding the right plants that would translate nicely in steel with our process. The theme was 'Native Plants of Montana'. It stretched us, it made us grow and we were blessed with success! I am thankful to Nicola for trusting us and giving us the opportunity to work on such a wonderful project. I am thankful everyday for a husband who treats me with respect and who loves me unconditionally. Thankful that he thinks he is, "the luckiest guy in the world", Shhh...let's not wreck his fantasy...besides I'm REALLY the lucky one! 

Hi Georgia, I created this blog for you! The gate to the left was created from a drawing of a woman's hair, interwoven with leaved vines. This is my interpretation, which looks nothing like the inspirational drawing. It's interesting how the creative process works, one little picture or a portion of a photograph can be used as inspiration. Somehow the result of my ironwork never looks like the original inspiration! Excuse the photo, I let Steve loose with the camera. Paw-paw, he's the man, aka--Kitty! 14 lbs. of lovable fluff. He has pretty gold eyes, but the flash was too bright! The railing to the left was also for our client in Montana. The theme was native plants of Montana. We just created the ironwork in this, the contractor installed it, the setting really did it justice. I really love this railing and hope to duplicate it in the log home that we will be building!