Craftmanship

All my furniture is built using time-honored methods that will outlast you and me. Dovetails and mortise and tenons (often pinned or wedged for even more strength) are the primary joints used, along with finger joints, sliding dovetails, and keyed mitres where appropriate. Wood does expand and contract with changes in season, and this movement is addressed by using floating panels made from solid book-matched lumber for door, side, and back panels. Solid tops are always attached to allow movement as well. All my beds feature fully mortised (hidden) connectors to attach the side rails to the head and foot boards.

While a large planer, jointer, bandsaw, and table saw allow us to quickly turn rough lumber into the straight, flat stock necessary for building furniture, it is the skilled and patient use of hand tools for joinery and final fitting, shaping, and smoothing that sets my furniture apart from factory-produced pieces.

Finishes

We finish all our furniture with a hand-rubbed oil and wax mixture. No stains are used; with all the beautiful woods available any desired color can be best achieved simply by selecting the right wood to start with, rather than trying to turn one species of wood into another. Just visit any large furniture store to see what I mean. You will find tables and chairs available in "cherry, walnut, or maple" finish but they are all actually built from the same cheap tropical wood. Why not just use Cherry, Walnut, or Maple?

Materials

Good furniture starts with good wood. In many cases the trees that become my furniture stood for a generation or more so I have a responsibility to use the resulting lumber wisely. Heirloom quality fine furniture isn't just a slogan; all my furniture is designed and built to last several generations as well. I work primarily with domestic hardwoods such as Cherry, Quartersawn White Oak, Walnut, and Maple which are not endangered. I can also use Lyptus, which is a sustainably-grown and harvested hybrid species that looks similar to Mahogany. For variety and visual interest, I do use more exotic woods such as Ebony for accents like decorative splines and pulls. I can readily obtain most wood species that you may choose for your project.