Vermont Woods Studios - Eco Furniture Blog

Cyber Monday Sale Extended for a Week Through December 7

With the holiday season upon us the last thing anyone needs is additional stress. 

Today was planned to be the end date for our Black Friday - Cyber Monday Furniture Sale, but we've had a number of customers calling to say they're still working on decision making. 

Don't stress.  Buying fine handmade furniture is an important investment and we want you to have the time to work out all the details.  We've extended the sale for a week, until midnight on Monday December 7, 2009.  Give us a call with any questions you have and we'll do our best to make the purchasing process easy and enjoyable!

Vermont Woods Studios fine handmade furniture at 888-390-5571.

Lyndon Furniture: Customize It and Buy Online

How do you like this custom made mission style table crafted by Lyndon Furniture?

On the way home after Thanksgiving dinner at Gramma's, we stopped by a housewarming party in St Johnsbury, Vermont.  Bill and Peggy C. have just finished a spectacular timber-frame home that's nestled into the top of a mountainside, featuring gorgeous views of the meadows below.

The view of the natural setting is breath-taking, but the scenery inside the home is also awe-inspiring.  The two world travelers have assembled such an interesting collection of art from all around the world!

We were excited to see many pieces of custom furniture that we had crafted for them.  This photo is an octagonal mission style table that Bill designed along with matching mission chairs.

For the custom table, we started with our American Mission Dining Table.   Bill liked the base pieces so we took 3 of them and arranged them in a triangle to make his base.  Then we changed the top shape from rectangular to octagonal.

I love the way it turned out!  If you're looking for custom furniture at an affordable price, Lyndon Furniture should be at the top of your list.  Give us a call at Vermont Woods Studios and we'll help you find (or design) exactly what you're looking for!

What are You Thankful For?

At Vermont Woods Studios, we're thankful for our community of customers and supporters who have made this year our best one yet.  With each purchase of high quality, handcrafted natural wood furniture you are supporting several different sustainable forestry and wildlife preservation efforts led by the World Wildlife Fund, Heifer International and many more.  

Here's a free online Thanksgiving card I thought might be useful... perhaps for those very few of us who can't believe it's Thanksgiving already and haven't sent a card to our mothers yet.  This card is provided by one of my favorite charities, the World Wildlife Fund.  Check it out!

Why Roz Renfrew is So Cool We Had To Name A Furniture Collection After Her

We have several Vermont Conservation Heros that we admire so much, we named sustainable furniture collections after them. 

Dr. Rosalind Renfrew is a dedicated wildlife biologist in Vermont. We first encountered Roz when she was leading the Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas project but her passion for Vermont's birds and their forest habitats has led her into many other important conservation projects since.

One of Roz's projects is bobolink migration. Amazingly these tiny birds (weight: about 1 ounce-- the weight of 1 slice of bread) migrate from Vermont to various locations in South America, approximately 8000-12,000 miles per year, round trip. Roz and colleagues have tagged 433 of the charismatic songbirds to learn more about them and help preserve the species.  The odds for recovering a tagged bird aren't so good.  Actually statistically they're essentially zero. 

Well, guess what?  This year the first Bobolink, No. 0961-10071 was recovered just 12 miles from Roz's home in Vermont.  The bird had been tagged 4300 miles away in Bolivia 3 years ago.  Since then he had flown at least 35,000 miles (more than a trip around the world which is 25,000 miles at the equator) in migration before a fateful summer day in VT when he had a most unfortunate encounter with a house cat.  How sad!

Roz notes that these magnificent flyers encounter numerous perils throughout their short and vulnerable lives.  No. 0961-10071 may have achieved the average lifespan of a Bobolink which is about 5 years.  Who knows? But regardless of the details of his demise, he is a special guy having flown all those miles and contributed much to the survival of his species through Roz's research.

Cat lovers (like me) take heed.  Might better keep those cat's inside... and get the stray cats neutered, but that's for another day.

Custom Walnut Dining Furniture

Here's a photo of some beautiful custom walnut dining furniture sent to us by Robert T in Connecticut.  Robert basically designed the buffet himself.  He started with our Large Vertical-Buffet Media Center and had us craft it with just one side cabinet instead of two.  He also increased the height of the unit from 60"H to 67"H.  I think it came our beautifully.

Robert also customized our Round Back Chair.  This is a chair we typically offer in cherry only, but Robert called to ask if we could craft it in walnut.  Since we only make this chair style a couple times each year he had to wait, but he was willing to do that and look how nice they turned out!

The dining room set was completed with our Modern Contemporary Dining Table in solid walnut.  The finish for the set is a hand-rubbed Danish oil.  

Congrats to Robert for designing such a beautiful dining set.  Enjoy!

Find more ideas for custom walnut furniture here.

Custom Bookcases From Vermont Woods Studios

I love it when customers share photos of their furniture after it's been installed in their homes.  It really brings our work full circle and gives us a great feeling about what we're doing.

See the narrow space available Bill P. had for this bookcase?  We customized the width of our Cherry Moon Bookcase so it would fit perfectly into this space.  Bill and his wife wanted doors on the bottom half of the unit too, so we added them.  And we made the unit shorter so it didn't obscure light switches and outlets.

 

  

  

  

Bill needed another bookcase to be customized for a taller height and without doors.  This one turned out to be just the ticket.

It doesn't take long for me to to fill up the shelves either Bill ;)

We're so happy that you love your new furniture!

Luxury Gift Ideas... for Mermaids

Most of us may not be planning to indulge in ultra luxury gift giving this year, but we can still look, right?  I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the new pieces we're offering.  Take notice, those whose stocks are up!  Now is the perfect time to invest in handcrafted custom artisan furniture heirlooms that will be cherished forever.  You'll never have to worry about them losing their value.

We call this masterpiece handcrafted by Steve Holman, the Mermaid's Sleigh Bed because of it's graceful, flowing lines, wave-shaped footboard and carved maple natuilus shells on both headboard and footboard.  

It's shown in cherry and curly cherry veneers, curly maple and nogal.  You could make quite a splash with this gift, don't you think?

Getting Buried in Holiday Junk Mail? Take Action Now!

Here's a quick gift you can give the planet for Christmas.  Add your voice to the growing chorus of people who want to set up a Do Not Junk Mail list that would be similar to that wonderful Do Not Call list the government set up a few years ago.  Wouldn't it be great?

Take this quiz to see how much of a waste junk mail really is:

The junk mail industry claims ___  trees a year.

1. 1 Million
2. 10 Million
3. 100 Million
   

 

Deforestation contributes more to global warming annually than all the _____ in the world.

1. Cars
   
2. Planes
3. Trains
4. Cars + Planes + Trains

Junk mail accounts for ___ percent of USPS mail.

1. 10 %
   
2. 20%
3. 30%
4. 75%
   

Answers:  100 Million,   Cars + Planes + Trains   and   30%

Unbelievable isn't it?  Surveys show that almost 90% of Americans favor the Do Not Mail Registry.  Please join us at Vermont Woods Studios in asking Congress to make it happen, and forward this post to your friends.  Ask them to join. 

Here's the petition sponsored by Forest Ethics.  It takes about 1 minute to read and sign it.

Vermont Woods Studios Furniture Featured in New England Home Magazine

Thanks to editor extraordinaire Erin Marvin, Vermont Woods Studios has once again been featured in New England Home magazine.  Our Modern Equinox Table is showcased as "one of our favorite must-haves for the season" with "curves in all the right places".

We are proud to be recognized in such a prestigious collection of unique and beautiful handcrafted New England furniture.  Thanks, Erin!

Luxury Christmas Gifts: Have You Thought About Artisan Furniture?

I guess most people would tend to think of diamonds and furs if they were looking for an extravagant gift for the holidays, right?  Or maybe a fancy little convertible. None of those sound very green to me.

Plenty of people will say that green luxury is an oxymoron anyway.  What do you think?

In my mind green luxury is the only luxury.  Check out these extravagant Christmas and holiday gift ideas.  They're all handmade in VT using sustainably harvested wood and natural finishes.  The ultimate indulgence!

I'm Inclined to Like This Bed

Isn't this a beautiful bed?  Our friend and colleague, Robin came out with this simple, elegant design recently and it's been our best selling bed ever since.  The headboard has a subtle incline-- just enough to make it comfy for reading or watching TV in bed. 

It's shown here in natural cherry, that has had a few months to ripen and reach the rich, reddish brown color cherry is known for.  We're calling it (what else?) the Modern Incline Bed.

Vermont's Furniture Makers: A Case Study in Sustainability

I attended a Vermont Wood Manufacturer's Association (VWMA) meeting last Friday that was held at Copeland Furniture in Bradford, VT.  I'm always amazed when getting together with all these talented artisans and furniture makers.  They're creative not only about their furniture designs, but also about the other aspects that are required to keep their businesses sustainable these days.

Tim Copeland was showing us the piles of wood shavings that are generated from milling and sanding his lumber.  He's setting up a system to convert the shavings and sawdust into wood pellets to use for heating.  Tim said he'll be able to heat his entire facility with the wood pellets and in addition, he'll have a new revenue stream generated by the surplus pellets. 

Just one of the many sustainable practices that Vermont's furniture makers have been working through for generations.

Vermont's Handmade Wood Furniture: Catching On in California

I chatted today with a couple from California who came to Vermont this Fall to attend the Vermont Fine Furniture Festival in Woodstock, VT. June and Bob had found our website online this summer and when we told them about the festival, they decided to plan their vacation around it.

They were able to narrow down their selection of handmade wood furniture to three of our collections before their trip:

• The American Shaker Furniture Collection
• The Vermont-Made Shaker Furniture Collection
• The Cherry Moon Furniture Collection

Then after spending a week in VT, taking in several days of sight-seeing, leaf peeping and touring of furniture studios they made a final decision and placed their order.   Now we are working with them to arrange shipping and delivery of their furniture.  I can't wait to see how it will look in their house.  Send photos, June!