handmade
HGTV: Got Any Green Home Office Ideas for Earth Day?
I am ashamed to say that my home office decor is deplorable. You can see it in this video taken last year when I had 6 other people working in it with me.
So with our Green-up Your Workplace Challenge coming up for Earth Day, I decided to look for green design ideas to spif it up with eco-friendly home office furniture, lighting and accessories.
I started looking for ideas at HGTV and was delighted to find they are showcasing over 125 home office design ideas submitted by homeowners and interior designers.
They've got modern home offices, eclectic home offices, traditional home offices, contemporary home offices, arts and crafts home offices, cottage home offices, tropical home offices, English country home offices, transitional home offices, mid-century modern and even Mediterranean home offices.
I hope they add a green home office project with all natural, all American made wooden office furniture: desks, file cabinets, credenza, occasional tables and chairs (maybe even using reclaimed, recycled barnwood). Then add in organic cotton rugs, draperies and upholstery, energy efficient electronics, light bulbs, light fixtures and maybe even FSC certified wood flooring. That would be a good project to post on Earth Day, HGTV. Just a suggestion.
Shaker Furniture on Sale for Spring
Spring into BIG SAVINGS on our 100% American Made Shaker Style Furniture with our Spring Shaker Sales Event. Whether just starting your Shaker Style decor or putting the finishing touches on your American Shaker Style home, now is the best time to buy and get discounts up to 20%!
The more you buy, the more you save. Receive a 10% discount off one piece, 15% discount on two pieces or 20% discount when you buy 3 or more pieces- Plus Free Shipping and Delivery!
We offer traditionally inspired, real hardwood Shaker Furniture for every room in the home. And our entire Shaker furniture line is skillfully handcrafted right here in Vermont. Made in your choice of natural cherry, maple, and walnut woods. This is real wood furniture that is solidly built to last for generations of enjoyment and use (and guaranteed for life).
Browse and shop our online gallery for your new Shaker bedroom, dining room, living room, or home office furniture. Or feel free to contact us at 888-390-5571. The Sale ends at midnight on March 31st. Please note that our Copeland Furniture is not included in this sale as it is value-priced with our low-price guarantee every day.
Large Custom Coffee Tables: Dinner And A Movie Anyone?
Do you find yourself eating dinner in front of the fireplace or TV more these days? One of the Top 10 Trends in Furniture for 2012 is the move towards large custom coffee tables. Why is that?
I know at my house, if the boys are home, we eat at the kitchen table. But if it's just Ken and me we sit down on the couch and use the coffee table instead. It's casual and comfy and relaxing.
The large square coffee tables can fit up to 6 or 8 people around them. They're great for playing cards or setting drinks and snacks on or even just putting your feet up on after a long day.
Check out some of the new coffee tables we've recently added to our store. Most are available in solid cherry, maple, walnut, oak or reclaimed barnwood and can be customized to fit your space– large or small. Give Rebecca and Shannon a call to learn more.
Solid Cherry Wood Furniture: 3 Ways To Tell If It’s Real
Cherry, cherry cherry. Over half the furniture we sell at Vermont Woods Studios is made of beautiful, lustrous cherry wood from the American black cherry fruit tree. Often customers come to us a little bit suspicious about whether our handmade furniture is made of real solid cherry wood.
Well, it's no wonder! Most furniture that's sold as cherry isn't cherry at all. Hard to believe isn't it? So I thought we would publish a few tips for determining if the cherry furniture you're looking at is actually made of real cherry.
Here are 3 things to look for:
What color is the wood? OK, this is a trick question. Freshly harvested cherry wood is a light pinkesh color but as cherry ages or ripens in the presence of light, it gets darker and eventually reaches a rich reddish brown. So when you're shopping be sure to ask if the furniture is brand new or if it's been in the showroom for a number of months.
The Cherry Moon bed above is about a month old so it has ripened some but in another few months (depending on the amount of ambient light) it will be as dark as the bed at left. Eventually all natural cherry furniture will end up about this same color. Often customers will request a dark stain on cherry to "hurry-up" the process. If you just can't wait we can usually convince our furniture makers to stain cherry but most of them would rather plead with customers to be patient and wait for the real thing.
What does the grain look like? Cherry has a simple, fine, closed grain, much like that of maple. You can see the grain pattern pretty well in the Cherry Moon bed above. Fake "cherry" wood often has little or no grain pattern. It's made by taking a cheaper wood, bleaching it, texturizing it with chemicals, then staining it with a "cherry" stain.
Are there occasional black flecks and black streaks in the wood? Real cherry has beautiful markings (from gum streaking, mineral deposits and pin knots). Fake cherry looks entirely uniform in grain due to the chemical processing mentioned above. It's unlikely you'll ever find black flecks or streaks in faux cherry woods.
Custom Furniture “Fast”
Custom furniture "fast" is really an oxymoron. I mean, one of the nicest things about owning custom furniture is the knowlegedge that is was built carefully, just for you. Not that it was slapped together fast.
So in the world of handmade custom furniture, "fast" is a relative term.
Our new Copeland Furniture collection is perhaps the "fastest" furniture we can deliver with a lead time of about 5-8 weeks. Typically it takes Copeland up to 6 weeks to complete the crafting of your furniture then, depending on where you live, it takes another 1-3 weeks to get your furniture safely to your doorstep and installed in your home.
So is it worth waiting for? Check out our customer Testimonials to see. And consider too, that with handmade, custom furniture you're buying something you're going to have for the rest of your life. We hope you'll think it's worth the wait.
American Furniture: Best Sellers
Over the last month or two Dennis and Manjula have added a couple hundred new Copeland American Made Furniture– beds, chests, dressers and other furniture pieces to our website. Now we have to re-organize a bit so it's easy to find what you're looking for.
We've created quite a few new categories to browse by, including one for Furniture Best Sellers. These are the most popular pieces in our Vermont made furniture store. Most of them will look familiar to you, especially if you have that natural, solid Shaker Sensibilty that draws many wood furniture shoppers and interior design professionals to our store.
But others are a surprise! Copeland's modern, contemporary Catalina bedroom set and their Monterey Arts & Crafts style bedroom sets are coming on strong and fast becoming our new best sellers. Have a look and let me know which furniture peices or collection you like best.
Copeland Bedroom Sets: Best Value in Solid Wood, Vermont Made Furniture
Dennis and Manjula have been working on getting a beautiful selection of Copeland Bedroom Furniture Sets up on our website.
Copeland is our newest line of Vermont made furniture and their styles include traditional, Shaker and modern furniture, such as the:
Berkeley Cherry Bedroom Set (Modern Asian style)
Catalina Walnut Bedroom Set (Modern, minimalist style)
Astrid Cherry Bedroom Set (Ultra modern, Jetson's style)
Soho Walnut & Maple Bedroom (Modern metropolitan style)
Copeland's signature style is kind of a clean, simple elegance that's very popular in the more chic neighborhhods of Manhattan and other cities. But we love it up here in rural Vernon VT too!
A few logistical details: the sets are designed to save you on shipping. We couldn't lower the prices of the furniture in the sets because we already have Copeland furniture priced as low as possible. In fact we have a low price guarantee on Copeland furniture. But with the sets, you save on shipping– which is significant. Rather than paying $300/piece for white glove delivery, you can order as many pieces as you like and pay just $450 for shipping and white glove delivery of the whole set.
Check out the sets and let us know what you think. We've tried to make them versatile so you can customize your set online with any combination of pieces you might like, but I'm sure we haven't thought of everything. Give us a call if you can't find the exact pieces you need for your set. Rebecca and Shannon will be happy to hear from you!
One more thing. So far we just have Copeland bedroom sets up but in another month or so we'll have their collection of Frank Lloyd Wright dining sets as well. If you're looking to purchase before then, just call.
Top 10 Reasons To Buy Fine Wood Furniture From Vermont
Last week I wrote a blog about Copeland Furniture and why Vermont Woods Studios is the best place to buy it. Rebecca thought it was helpful and asked if I would write something similar for the rest of our furniture. So, here you have it: The Top 10 Reasons To Buy Fine Wood Furniture From Us.
We know you can buy your furniture just about anywhere, including the grocery store. We're not the cheapest or the fastest deal out there. But what we can offer is the very best VALUE in terms of quality, price and longevity. Our furniture is designed to last forever and we back that with a lifetime guarantee.
Check out the other reasons to buy from us.
Secrets Furniture Retailers Will Never Tell You
I was browsing through a home furnishings magazine that focuses on strategy for the furniture retailer today. The publisher was writing about the revolution that Keurig has caused in the coffee industry. She noted that Keurig has caused millions of coffee drinkers to throw away their old Mr Coffee and buy a new Keurig instead. Then buy dozens of flavors of K-cups and if they don't like them, throw them out too! It's beautiful, because by creating all these choices– some that customers won't like– you're increasing sales as products are thrown away and replaced with new.
The publisher's challenge to furniture retailers was to do the same thing as Keurig– come up with furniture that would make home owners throw their old furniture out and replace it with something new and more exciting. Frequently! Just like K-cups. She even went so far as to say that retailers should figure out a way to make money every time you sit in their chairs (like Keurig makes money every time you buy another K-cup)!
Whoa! What do you think about this?
I'm amazed at the lasar-like focus on profit to the complete exclusion of environmental concerns. It seems pervasive in the furniture industry, although there are outliars (those would be the small American furniture companies that remained here in the USA when the big guys like Ethan Allen, Bassett and Broyhill outsourced to Asia 30 years ago).
Our philosohpy at Vermont Woods Studios Fine Furniture is different. We know we have to turn a profit to keep our business thriving but we're doing that by focusing on the fact that your furniture is a long term investment and something you can enjoy forever. We strive to make furniture with timeless designs so it will never go out of style or have to be replaced. We offer a lifetime guarantee on the quality of our furniture. And we're pretty sure you'll be handing it down to your grandchildren rather than throwing it out on the curbside with the last Keurig you bought.
We welcome your comments below or on our Facebook.
Five Valentine’s Gift Suggestions From Vermont
What are you doing for your sweatheart for Valentine's Day? How about a Vermont Teddy Bear or a romantic weekend getaway in Vermont?
For the ultimate in luxury check out Twin Farms, an "an intimate country hideaway set amid 300 acres of meadows and woodlands in an unspoiled valley, 15 minutes north of Woodstock, VT." Besides all the other superlatives, Twin Farms has one of the best reputations in the Northeast for its natural, local organic cuisine. After dining you can indulge in a luxurious spa treatment before retiring to your own private suite or cottage. Rates are all-inclusive and start at around $1500/night or $43,000 if you'd like to rent the whole place.
If that's a bit over your budget or you're not able to travel out of the city for Valentine's Day, here are a couple other gift suggestions. How about Vermont Teddy Bear's Big Hunka Love Bear? It's made right here in Vermont and the company is involved in many charitable initiatives in the local community and beyond.
In the organic and fair trade department, we have Lake Champlain Chocolates Organic Chocolate Truffles, fresh all natural chocolates, made in Burlington, Vermont. And Laughing Moon Chocolates made in Stowe, VT with locally sourced products whenever possible.
Now if you REALLY want to show up on Valentine's Day with a truly unforgettable showstopper of a gift then I think you might have to consider commissioning Vermont's premiere luxury furniture artisan, Steve Holman to craft one of his Valentine's Day Heart Chairs for the love of your life. We'll post the details about this heart-warming conversation piece on Valentine's Day.
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