Monday, May 2, 2011

fretwork on secretary doors

I've been wanting to add some interest to the doors of my antique secretary.


I've seen a number of secretaries and cabinets that have wooden fretwork on the doors.  There is this one that Eddie Ross made over:


Or this one belonging to Jenny at Little Green Notebook:


Or this, from downstairs in my mother in law's living room.

Looking at the fretwork closely, these examples are actually a single piece of wood cut into a design and laid over the glass.  Look at the lower left corner of the Eddie Ross painting picture, you can see the fretwork grid laying on the ground:


I've been googling this on the internet, and have yet to find anyplace where I could simply buy an already made fretwork to add to my secretary.  I could attempt this with some cheap balsa wood and a jigsaw, but I'm all about lazy DIY if its available.

Apparently the way to make one of these out of a single piece of wood is to use a scroll saw, but since I don't own one of those, it looks like I'll have to improvise.

Anyone have any ideas on where you could buy ready-made fretwork?

2 comments:

  1. No clue how to get it, but I hope you figure it out and let the rest of us in on the secret!

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  2. Not too sure where you could find it. What about just painting on the glass in the design you want?

    ReplyDelete

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