I love working with trees. Building with this renewable resource is a privilege. You have to read this living artful material in order to craft the proper form. Plus, it’s just so much better than other artificial materials used at some big blue stores with yellow letters that sell disposable furniture. To me, it makes a lot more sense to buy an heirloom piece that can be passed down from generation to generation instead of needing to buy a new cheap piece of furniture every few years.

Harvesting wood to use in furniture or construction traps the carbon store from the tree's lifetime instead of releasing it into the atmosphere through decomposition. I’m no sustainability expert. I’m just a guy trying to do things the right way. If you want to read more about it from people that might actually know what they’re talking about, check out this article.

The wood choices that I make are made with sustainability in mind. Most furniture makers would turn their precious noses up at a rustic grade (not perfectly straight-grained and full of knots) hardwood. They can get passed over or scrapped. I actually prefer them. The knots and grain movement tell a story. They display the art of the wood like a painting on canvas. It is harder to work with since it wants to move and twist in different ways, but with the right techniques, it makes for beautiful heirloom quality furniture.

Another material that garners much derision from those in the woodworking community is the dreaded pine. Many woodworkers start by working with pine since it’s available en masse at your local blue or orange big box store. So when they move on to hardwoods and other exotic woods, they look at it as if they’re elevating themselves above the amateurs. I would argue that a woodworker who can craft a beautiful heirloom out of pine has some serious skill. The pine I love to use is termed “beetle kill pine” or “blue stain pine”. The beetle eats away the layer between the bark and sapwood leaving behind a fungus that stains the wood blue. It doesn’t affect the structural integrity at all, but it does kill the tree. The beetle essentially destroys the layer of the tree that transports water and nutrients. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of dead pines in the western US just standing as fuel for a wildfire. Using the pine in construction or woodworking takes that wood out of the forest and gives it new life.

When I’m designing a piece, I always focus on the waste created in its construction. Will I have a bunch of wasted scrap wood just to get the perfect leg/apron connection on a particular table? Will I have to use only a portion of this board because of structural concerns? I use my design to rectify these issues. I’ll take those boards full of knots and artful grain patterns and incorporate them for the tabletop instead of only being able to use a portion of the board for a more structural area like the leg. As a bonus, it makes for a much prettier tabletop anyways. I always have sustainability on my mind.

Plant Trees

I work with One Tree Planted to donate profits to plant trees for every piece that I make depending on the size of the item. Pieces like a dining room table have 10 trees planted while something like a stool has 5. Every piece has at least 1 tree planted. Read more about One Tree Planted and its operations.

Carbon ‘Tax’

Additionally, I’ve adopted a standard carbon tax of 1% of my profits for every piece that I make paid to The Honnold Foundation. The Honnold Foundation supports solar energy access— solar everywhere, for everyone. You can read more about their efforts by visiting their website.