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Michael Douglas Too

@michael_douglas_too

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wasteworker
turning trash into 🪑🪞🛋️ over at @estudiomortovivo
porto

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custom media console / part 3

to finish up this piece a flip down fabric screen was made from some leftover fabric and brass hinges the customer provided. behind the fabric screen will be a sound system so we chose to use a loose-woven fabric that will not hinder the quality of the audio. a custom pull was made from one of the remaining cuttings to round everything out. the console was finally finished with all-natural tung oil to both protect and bring out the true characteristics of the wood.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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2 months ago

custom media console / part 2

after the boards were glued they were planed and the legs were cut, shaped and sanded. the round corners on the top were created using three 30 degree pieces glued together, reinforced by a series of splines. after assembly the corners were sanded into a beautiful smooth round-over, buttons were inserted to fill old screw and nail holes and the entire console was finish sanded to prepare for the tung oil treatment.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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2 months ago

custom media console / part 1

this commission piece started with several pieces of door trim that were salvaged during the client’s home renovation project. all nails, screws and other hardware needed to be removed first and then the pieces were later cut to size and glued together with the joints being reinforced by custom made dowels. this reel shows the preparation of the top and bottom boards as well as the sideboards which also serve as the console legs.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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2 months ago

flew the coop

this one-of-a-kind mirror has left me behind and moved onto bigger and better things just across the street. though i’m sad to see it go it’s settled in nicely to its new digs.

featuring spanish cedar and mahogany, this piece is made from the leftover cuttings of a commission project i worked on last year and the mirror was pulled out of the trash right here on the streets of porto. finished with shellac.

this is not faux-sustainability; this is another example of what is possible without the use of virgin materials and products dependent upon oil.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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5 months ago

flew the coop

this one-of-a-kind mirror has left me behind and moved onto bigger and better things just across the street. though i’m sad to see it go it’s settled in nicely to its new digs.

featuring spanish cedar and mahogany, this piece is made from the leftover cuttings of a commission project i worked on last year and the mirror was pulled out of the trash right here on the streets of porto. finished with shellac.

this is not faux-sustainability; this is another example of what is possible without the use of virgin materials and products dependent upon oil.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

3

0

5 months ago

flew the coop

this one-of-a-kind mirror has left me behind and moved onto bigger and better things just across the street. though i’m sad to see it go it’s settled in nicely to its new digs.

featuring spanish cedar and mahogany, this piece is made from the leftover cuttings of a commission project i worked on last year and the mirror was pulled out of the trash right here on the streets of porto. finished with shellac.

this is not faux-sustainability; this is another example of what is possible without the use of virgin materials and products dependent upon oil.

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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5 months ago

not new, but old

trudging through the establishment furniture industry i learned a lot. a stint working for a knoll dealer put me close with the iconic pieces i’d idolized but it also shed a dim light on what the industry calls sustainable. thanks to aggressive greenwashing tactics, “sustainability” has become a subjective term, misleading consumers into feeling eco warm fuzzies. i don’t put much faith in corporations “working toward” green initiatives. it’s a nice banner to hide behind while you continue to do things the way you always have. “but what about those certifications?” nespresso (aka nestlé) getting b corp certified pretty much sums that up.

after knoll i bartended, helped my partner lu run her (actually) sustainable jewelry business, and self-published a depressing book of poetry. but i found my way back to furniture, helping a friend with his repair & restoration business. i learned more about design and craftsmanship by taking things apart, seeing how they worked and putting them back together than i did by studying tear sheets. it also gave me a glimpse into the small makers doing one-offs and custom pieces. furniture is for every individual one of us; there should not be a one-size-fits-all approach.

that brings me to today, to porto, to designing & building my own one-of-a-kind pieces from repurposed, salvaged & waste materials, without petroleum-derived products. nothing novel here, just a return to craft over convenience. i believe in reimagining what’s possible with the materials already around us. i believe the manufacturer, not the consumer, holds responsibility for the impact of what they create. and i believe we all deserve well-designed, beautiful things in our lives.

allow me to introduce (or reintroduce) myself,

i’m michael douglas too

it’s nice to meet you.

❤️
🩸 by @michael_douglas_too

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6 months ago

growing up

living in los angeles in my 20s made a profound impact on my life. it’s a city that i often describe as “splitting my head wide open.” love it or hate it la is a city of abundance; overabundance actually. living there exposed me to so many things i had never seen before especially in regards to art. the hyper-competitive nature brought on by la’s role as the nucleus of so many industries built on the backs of artists means that what you’re seeing or hearing or experiencing, in my opinion, is among the best of the best; the cream that rises to the top. la helped me to understand what a standard is and to learn to push myself further in my creative pursuits.

although i was moonlighting as a drummer in a band with identical twins (i honestly didn’t know who was who until they picked up their instruments), my time in the city of angels was spent working in a very non-art industry: environmental chemistry and hazardous waste management. during these dirty years i got a backstage pass to how hard we’re really screwing the planet in a crossing the “t”s and dotting the “i”s, completely legal, above board way. california has some of the strictest environmental laws in the u.s. and the stuff that’s environmentally legal there would make your head spin. this is where i learned about another standard; a standard so low it can hardly be considered one at all. i know where the quick-dry, 2-in-1, easy-peasy, set-it-and-forget-it stuff we use as artists ends up, i’ve literally driven truckloads of it there. and going backwards to the manufacturing side of all of these wonderful products there’s one essential ingredient with which none of them can exist without: oil. this is where i decided i wanted to do things differently.

there had to be a better way.

❤️
🩸

clip from “the big lebowski,” 1998, universal pictures by @michael_douglas_too

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6 months ago

point of origin

being raised by a work-from-home interior designer, unique furniture was a fixture of my childhood. today my mother reluctantly calls herself an artist but when i was a kid it was pretty clear to me what she was, tagging along from house to house, each one a testament to her abilities and to her craft. my dad was pretty crafty too; and so was his dad. he was the first person to put a saw in my hand and hope for the best. when i was young these people were the collective sun and i was the closest planet to orbit around them.

it’s funny what you remember from your childhood and what you don’t; what you think will stick (and it doesn’t) and then the random stuff that you never gave much thought to at the time but is still there after all these years. for me one of those things is a cartoon my grandma used to show me at christmas. it was on a vhs tape with a bunch of other classic cartoons but it stuck with me. it’s from 1936 and is called “christmas comes but once a year.” it tells the story of these kids at an orphanage who wake up on christmas morning, open their gifts and gleefully begin to play with them and one by one all the gifts break. the children begin to cry just as “professor grampy: inventor” is passing by. he goes in to see what’s the matter and quickly jumps into action fashioning new gifts for the kids from what he can scrounge up: old appliances, a washboard, a roller shade, an old alarm clock. and, naturally, he saves christmas. i adored this cartoon and, as ridiculous as it sounds, it’s one of my earliest memories of creative reuse and what is possible from repurposed materials. what can i say? kids are sponges.

doing what i do today it makes a lot of sense how i got here. did professor grampy plant the seed on making things from what i could pull together around me? maybe. did my dad telling me to nail this piece of wood to that piece of wood play a role? probably. did organizing a literal library of fabric, leather and wood finish samples in my mom’s office turn me toward materials? it’s highly likely.

who we are now all starts from somewhere.

❤️
🩸

clip from “christmas comes but once a year,” 1936, paramount pictures by @michael_douglas_too

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6 months ago

triplet

yes, from time to time, on occasion, when the moon’s right, i have been known to work with metal. triplet is a floor standing, three-headed lamp made entirely from steel.

the stainless steel tubes that form the structure were salvaged from a construction site in porto and the steel shades were pulled out of the scrap pile of a former sock factory in vila verde. the tubes were formed into their final shape by filling them with sand and slowly pulling them by hand around a wooden form.

triplet is a unique reading lamp, statement desk lamp or sleek floor lamp glowing from the corner of your favorite room. as with most of my creations this piece is a 1 of 1.

available to ship or in studio

dm with inquiries

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

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0

6 months ago

triplet

yes, from time to time, on occasion, when the moon’s right, i have been known to work with metal. triplet is a floor standing, three-headed lamp made entirely from steel.

the stainless steel tubes that form the structure were salvaged from a construction site in porto and the steel shades were pulled out of the scrap pile of a former sock factory in vila verde. the tubes were formed into their final shape by filling them with sand and slowly pulling them by hand around a wooden form.

triplet is a unique reading lamp, statement desk lamp or sleek floor lamp glowing from the corner of your favorite room. as with most of my creations this piece is a 1 of 1.

available to ship or in studio

dm with inquiries

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

3

1

6 months ago

triplet

yes, from time to time, on occasion, when the moon’s right, i have been known to work with metal. triplet is a floor standing, three-headed lamp made entirely from steel.

the stainless steel tubes that form the structure were salvaged from a construction site in porto and the steel shades were pulled out of the scrap pile of a former sock factory in vila verde. the tubes were formed into their final shape by filling them with sand and slowly pulling them by hand around a wooden form.

triplet is a unique reading lamp, statement desk lamp or sleek floor lamp glowing from the corner of your favorite room. as with most of my creations this piece is a 1 of 1.

available to ship or in studio

dm with inquiries

❤️
🩸 taken in Estúdio Morto Vivo by @michael_douglas_too

3

0

6 months ago