All you need to know about the world’s first Lumia furniture maker
What happens when a Lumia lover is also a talented woodworker? He crafts amazing pieces of furniture for his Lumia to get some rest in, of course!
We love to see all of the amazingly creative photos and videos that you all do with your Lumias, but Stuart Nickel shows off his creativity in a slightly different way. Using his skills as a woodworker, Stuart creates tiny beds and chairs for his Lumia to recharge in, which not only look great, but are practical as well. We talked with Stuart to find out a little more about how he came up with this cool and comfy idea, and the process of crafting the pieces – so grab a seat and read on to find out more!
1. Could you tell us a little about yourself and your background? What is your profession and how has that contributed to your Lumia furniture creation?
My name is Stuart, married with 3 children. I run a small daily class to show how to make basic woodwork items like beds and chairs. I suppose on one sunny day I thought “Hey, it would be a bit of a laugh to make a Windows Phone/Lumia bed and duvet set for it!” I had been thinking about doing something different for a while, but didn’t know what until that sunny day.
2. When did you first become passionate about Lumias and why? Which Lumia do you currently have and what inspired you to start making it its own furniture?
I have always been a massive fan of Windows Phone and remember looking over the internet at clips of the upcoming OS and how it differed from windows mobile 6. My first Windows Phone was the Htc Mozart and now I have a Lumia 930. I love reading about what is new and coming up on Windows Phone, and have seen lots of people showing off their photography skills, so I thought why not do something different and something that may make people think “Wow, that’s great!”
3. What does your Lumia furniture range currently include? Aside from making the phone look stylish and comfy, what practical advantages does the furniture have?
It currently only includes a bed (well, 2 beds – the first attempt and the second) and a deck chair. The first bed I made was without a space for the wireless charger, so on the second attempt, I made one with a space so the phone can lay down flat on the bed without the chance for our cat to knock it over during the night, making me have a flat battery in the morning. The chair also had a wireless charger space so it can charge, but the phone stands up so it can clearly be visible if anything shows on the screen (it would be even better suited for a Lumia with glance but unfortunately the 930 does not have the feature).
4. What does the furniture-making process involve, what materials are needed and how long does it take from start to finish?
The furniture process starts off by getting some measurements of a handset (I used my 930) and sketching some ideas on paper. Then I used some scrap bits of ash because it’s what I use at home as it’s cheap. I cut up the shapes needed to make the items using a scrollsaw, printed off the logos that I engraved on the wood, and using a hand router, I copied the image onto the wood. I then used the hand router to cut out a round hole for the wireless charger to sit into. Then I painted the logos using some wood paint, and some sanding and gluing.
The bed took about 2 hours from start to finish and the chair about 2 and a half as some parts were harder to do. The duvet set design took awhile to make, about 2 to 3 hours from start to finish as I wanted to use as many small app tiles from the phone as I could. The only way I could do this was to screen shot my entire list of apps and then edit them in Photoshop to position them to make the words BED TIME. I went to the local photography shop and asked them to print the BED TIME design onto a small piece of canvas. Then I sewed a back piece of canvas and pillow, and added some stuffing to plump it up.
5. What kind of feedback have you had from the Lumia-loving community so far? Do you think there could be a market for handmade phone accessories like this?
I tweeted the pic of the bed to a few Nokia accounts and had a retweet from Nokia UK, and my inbox went crazy with people retweeting and favouriting the tweet. The chair didn’t get a retweet so was unsure what anyone thought of it. The bed seemed to be a massive hit with the people that saw it and didn’t have anyone say anything bad about it. I think it must have been something totally different for people and I think as long as it was nice and cheap it would be a nice addition to the Lumia family, like the Fatboy pillow.
6. What are your future plans? We can’t wait to see what you’ve next got in the pipeline…
I’m currently torn as to what to do next and am wondering if someone could give me an idea or ideas and I’ll see what I can do.
We hope you loved Stuart’s creativity as much as we do, and we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. Let us know in the comments what you think, and what type of teeny-tiny you’d love to see Stuart craft next!