Vermont Woods Studios - Eco Furniture Blog

The What’s To Do in Vermont in July!

By Dennis Shanoff

 

Looking for things to do in Vermont this July? There are always a bunch of fun summer things to do in Vermont but if you are looking for some organized themed events let me run some of the more “tasty” ones by you! 

 

 

 

 

 

The first event on tap (pun intended!) brings the Vermont’s Brewers Festival. Here you will find 40 craft beer brewers not only from Vermont but from New York, New Hampshire, Mass, Maine, California, Ottawa and Quebec as well. Each summer and fall New England hosts dozens of brew festivals but this one up in Burlington is tops. And here’s some interesting Vermont beer trivia… MSNBC listed Burlington, VT as the best city in the US for beer lovers and according to the Brewers Association’s Vermont has more breweries per capita than any other state!

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, here we go again… well it seems that Vermont is also the premium artisanal cheese state with the highest number of cheesemakers per capita: over 40 of them! Who knew! So now you must be wondering when the Cheese fesitval is and this one is hard to resist! Check out the Vermont Cheesmakers Festival held at Shelburne Farms. And it’s not just cheese, but also 20 of Vermonts breweries and wineries plus 15 artisan food producers. This farm is an ideal setting for the event where additional activities include walking trails, wagon rides and a farmyard for children. A big part of Vermont Woods Studios reason for exsistance and our main mission is forest conservation. So we would like to point out that Shelburne Farms manages about 400 acres of woodlands filled with all types of beneficial trees. Their sustainable forest provides heating fuel for their buildings, lumber for wood products and habitat for wildlife. We applaud their "green forestry" practices and environmental stewardship!

 

 

How about dessert? There is always room for dessert, right? Head up to the Deerfield Valley Blueberry Festival. This is a 10 day event starting in late July with dozens of “Blue” themed events across the area. In addition to all things blueberry there will be vintage cars, music and plenty of great food. Head over to the Mount Snow Valley Chamber of Commerce in Wilmington to see all the fun happenings.

If you are looking for an “all under one roof” type of event (and in this case under a big tent!) The Taste of Stowe Arts Festival is a unique event which offers a market for artisan crafts, original art, music, and an array of gourmet eats. It’s one of Vermont’s many excellent handcrafts events. There is plenty to see at this festival and it’s a great way to support local handcrafted products.

So that’s a rundown of some of the main Vermont events this July. We hope you get to experience and enjoy some of the sights, sounds, and tastes of Vermont this summer!

Vermont Vacation photo courtesy of WilloughVale Inn and Cottages

Vermont Brewers Festival Illustration courtesy of The Vermont Brewer's Association

Vermont Artisan Cheese photo courtesy of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese

 

 

 

How about a Vermont Summer Vacation!

By Dennis Shanoff

Where did Spring go? It seems like suddenly it is summer! So have you planned your summer family vacation yet? Or are you still looking for vacation ideas?

Well if you haven’t planned your summer vacation you just might want to consider a Vermont Vacation. We might be a tad biased but we think Vermont is one of the best vacation spots. And if you like fresh air, rolling green hills, arts & crafts and artisan foods Vermont is absolutely one of the best places to vacation!

Where to stay? The choice is yours. Vermont accommodations range from quiet campgrounds and cozy cabins to luxury inns and classy resorts. You can make one area your base camp while you work the region or hop scotch the state on a theme vacation such as following a cheese, wine, or micro brewed beer trail.

What to do? Here are a few of our favorite Vermont vacation ideas and popular destinations:

It’s hard to beat the quaintness of Woodstock, a postcard picture perfect New England Village. Be sure to visit the Gillingham & Sons General Store. You will be amazed at the diversity of products they carry! Nearby Queeche Gorge offers great scenic opportunities, antiquing, and fine dining. You might consider lunch or dinner at the Simon Pearce restaurant where you will have the added treat of dining on a balcony overlooking a dramatic waterfall. Prefer your activities to be a little more strenuous? Try hiking or mountain biking in the Killington area.

Or visit our big city of Burlington where we don’t quite have skyscrapers but you might find a building more then a few stories tall. Burlington is not only a great pedestrian town, but very dog friendly. Take a Lake Champlain tour (Americas 6th largest lake) or wander about Church Street where outside dining and unique shops abound.

Need more ideas? When it comes to finding Vermont vacation attractions the official Vermont tourism website has a great search feature to help you discover fun and interesting things to do. And if your route brings you in the southeastern area of Vermont and you have an interest in seeing some of Vermont’s best wood furniture please stop by and visit our showroom in Vernon.

So this year take a Vermont family vacation! Oh, and bring an empty suitcase… you are going to find a lot of goodies you’ll want to bring back!

Photo courtesy of Vermont State Parks.

 

 

Pepper Comes Through For Kendall

Last week Kendall sent a very nice email out to all our Vermont Woods Studios Furniture office staff politely asking them for input to a STAFF BIO page he's putting together.  Everyone completely blew him off, including me, I'm sorry to say. 

Well everyone but Pepper.  As you can see, she is very serious about her job, especially when it involves working with a mouse.  Always on top of things (like our documents, keyboards and laps) Pepper is once again setting the standard for cooperative behavior in the Vermont Furniture World.

You can read her corporate profile as she enters her new supervisory assignment right here on our Vermont made furniture website. 

Now as for Rebecca, Manjula, Dennis, Douglas, Ken, Riley and Kendall-- well I don't want to put any pressure on you but you should know that at this moment Pepper is setting up an account at her favorite store and lobbying hard for YOUR bonuses in order to fund her next binge.  I'd say you might want to get crackin on those bios! 

Just sayin...

Vermont's Best PYO Strawberry Festival: Mark You Calendar For June 25

 

You may not even have noticed because of all the rain, but this is STRAWBERRY season in Vermont.  Usually by this time of the summer, we've been to Dutton's PYO Berry Farm a couple times to pick our own berries. 

When the boys were toddlers we would get to the check-out stand and have several quarts of berries to weigh-- as well as an empty container in each of the boys fat little hands.  We really should have been weighing the boys on the way in and then weighing them again at check-out to get an accurate price for the strawberries they picked.  But the nice people at Duttons were always happy just to estimate that.

Anyway, this year's strawberry crop is about at peak now.  The rain has made some of the fields too soggy to pick in, but the fields that are drained are said to have an INCREDIBLE crop.  Loads of berries on every plant and the rain has super-sized them.  It's

There are strawberry festivals all over Vermont but perhaps the most well known festival is at Sam Mazza's Farm Market in Colchester, Vermont this Saturday, June 25 from noon-4pm.   Here you'll find fresh-picked Strawberry Shortcake piled high with Whipped Cream and Ripe, Juicy Vermont Strawberries grown on the farm.  Strawberry Milkshakes, Strawberry Fudge, Strawberry Jam & Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries are also favorites. Pony Rides, Kid's Games, a Petting Zoo, Face Painting & Vermont Specialty Food Samples and WVMT Radio Personality Charlie Papillo will be there to keep you entertained.  Check it out, pick your own strawberries and let us know how you liked it!  Or if you've found another Strawberry Festival you love, tell us about it in the comments section.

Vermont Woods Studios Furniture

Happy Father's Day

 

 

What are you getting Dad for Father's Day?  Kendall and Riley have been raking their brains trying to think of something other than the usual wallet or tie we get Ken every year. 

 

Used to be we could get him some fishing gear too, but that's out now-- with the limited mobility issue.

 

I've been thinking about a gift certificate to the Vermont Woodworking School in Cambridge VT.   This is a very cool school and they offer all different types of courses and workshops-- from beginner to advanced.

 

They even offer an immersion program where you can live at the Farm House or in a silo housing unit (see photo) while you learn the finer points of woodworking.  Students take field trips to meet some of the world's best artisan furniture makers and see their studios. 

 

 

 

 

What a gift for Dad, right?  Getting him out of the house to do guy things on his own?  And I think they may even take a field trip to near-by micro-breweries.  What could be more better than wood and hops?  And honestly, Dad's not likely to get into much trouble in rural Vermont. 

Convinced?

Anonymous websites?

By Guest Blogger, Dennis Shanoff

The way we shop is certainly changing. Shopping via the internet has provided us greater variety & access to products. In a physical or regional shopping experience you have the chance to at least drive by or poke in and see what the business is about. Meet the people, get a feel for the product or service, and develop trust and confidence in the business. You know, feel good about spending your money there.

So with almost every product or service you seek you have many choices as to where to purchase it. And it’s your decision who gets your hard earned money, right?

So why is it that there are a number of web stores that reveal so little about themselves? At the very least you should be able to find in one click from the home page where they are located, how long the have been in business, and as many ways to contact them as possible. And of course it wouldn’t hurt to learn more about the people behind the scenes. And are they truly experts in this product field or just capitalizing on a trend or popular product? It’s not hard to build a website that simply collects orders and transfers the order fulfillment via drop shipping? In that case have they ever seen or used the product before? Do they know how to use it, maintain it, properly size it, etc? Can they speak from experience about a products satisfaction, performance or reliability?

It just gives me the impression that they want you to just buy online and they not be bothered. Some even tempt buyers in with unusually low prices? Are they marking up list price just to mark it down? Or it makes you wonder how they might cut corners to sell for so low or how they can run perpetual sales? When buying something sight unseen online you want to feel confident that you will get exactly what you expect and that if something does indeed go wrong there is an expert ready and willing to help with an easy resolution.

So you may want to do what I do. When you find a few web sites offering what you want, take the time and poke deeper into each site. It should be easy to uncover the web business that not only has the best expertise but is working hardest for your business and appreciates it the most!

Riley's Back In The Woods!

 

 

 

 

Summer vacation is officially over and Riley is back to work in the office at Vermont Woods Studios Furniture.  He's busy ginning up spreadsheets and graphs for Ken,  updating webpages for Manjula and occasionally sawing or sanding something in the shop. 

 

Now please don't tell me you're going to be like Manjula and say:

*     Oh Peggy, how can you make those boys work so hard?

*     He's only had a couple of days off since school got out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can I just draw your attention to the boy in these pictures?  Does this look like a brow-beaten, over-worked, under-fed waif who's never had a chance to unwind from the brutal pressures of life as a high school sophomore?

 

Well anyway... Riley's doing a great job at VWS and is even pretty tolerant about working in the same room with Kendall and me.  So thus far, it's all good and we're delighted to have his help.

 

Welcome back, Riley!

Vermont Made Dining Furniture Sale

 

All of our Vermont made Dining Room Furniture is on sale starting today and going through next Tuesday, June 21.

Just in time for summer!  Take a few minutes out of your busy BBQ, pool-side and tanning schedule to check the sale out. 

Now is the perfect time to order handmade, heirloom quality dining room furniture as it takes about 6-10 weeks to build.  While you're outside enjoying the sun, we'll be crafting your furniture and then delivering it just about when you're moving dinner from the picnic table to the dining room. 

Browse through our dining furniture collections to find the one you've always wanted.  Then Like us on Facebook and save $50 more!

 

Is It Possible To Make Polywood Furniture Assembly Instructions Interesting?

OUR GOOFY POLYWOOD ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS VIDEO

 

OK-- we introduced our new line of Polywood recycled plastic outdoor patio furniture this Spring.  Unlike our solid wood furniture, Polywood furniture is shipped in a box via UPS and it must be assembled by our customers. 

Several customers have asked how difficult it is to assemble the polywood pieces and we wanted to respond to that.  It's actually pretty easy but we didn't want to put people to sleep with a boring show of Ken with a screw gun traipsing through the step-by-step instructions.

So we decided to buy an Adirondack chair for each staff member and have a race to see who could assemble their chair the fastest.  We filmed it and are hoping it will at least be a mildly amusing way to convey the basics of assembling Polywood furniture.  Check it out for me.  It's definitely a goofy video, but the truth is... we get that way sometimes.  OUR FUNNY POLYWOOD ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS VIDEO.

Kendall Is Back For The Summer

If you call during the summer and Rebecca is on the other line, you 'll probably end up talking to Kendall instead. 

He's a big high school graduate now and will be heading off to Atlanta in August to start his college career at Emory University. 

But in the meantime he'll be helping us in the office and we've been looking forward to it!  He's been working with Vermont Woods Studios Furniture for 5 years now so he's able to handle almost anything we throw his way.  And we'll be throwing alot.

Welcom back, Kendall!  Get ready for a busy summer. 

Oh... and the beautiful girl is Emily, Kendall's cousin.  Many thanks to Em and her family for joining us to celebrate Kendall's big day.

New Meaning "For the Birds"

For years I've been trying to either cajole or coerce some of the creative people at Vermont Woods Studios to guest blog for me.  Our team members' lives are infinitely more exciting than mine so naturally I am ecstatic to finally report that I've recruited a guest blogger, Dennis Shanoff.  Woohoo!

 

Dennis is an ace online marketing genie and an avid outdoorsman and naturalist.  I'm excited to welcome him to this forum and I look forward to reading his posts.  Here is the first:

 

"My weekends discovery has reminded us at Vermont Woods Studios to thank our customers who have “feathered their nests” with our cozy Vermont Made furniture.

You might be interested to know that other families are beneficiaries of the Vermont Furniture you chose for your home! It’s just that these families happened to be feathered! You see the small lumber cutoffs from some of our craftsman I turn into nesting boxes for birds, specifically the Eastern Bluebird and the equally beautiful and graceful Tree Swallow. These guys eat pesky bugs and they eat up lots of bugs when their young arrive!

I maintain about a dozen boxes in my yard and some of my neighbors that have the right terrain have placed our nest boxes in their yards. I monitor these boxes every few days to see how things are going. As usual this year I have full occupancy. Mostly Tree Swallows but I have observed 3 boxes taken by Bluebirds. This past Saturday I found eggs in all the boxes and in one box a Momma Bluebird was sitting tight.

 So Sunday morning when Momma bluebird flew out to get some breakfast I checked into the nest box and discovered tiny hatchlings that couldn’t have been more then a day old! Perfect timing! This is the soonest I have seen them after hatching. About the size of a Nickel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tree Swallows should be hatching very soon too. While the Swallows will hatch, fledge, and hang out a bit, they will eventually move on. The bluebirds on the other hand will repeat this process 2 or 3 more times this summer. And the young from the first Bluebird hatch will stay around to help Mom & Dad take care of the next batch! And so it goes on my land year after year. It’s such a great feeling knowing each year you helped nature put 60 or more beneficial birds on the planet and in the skies!

So we thank you and a big thank you from our appreciative feathered friends! They just love these nest boxes! And we hope you are loving your newly furnished nest too!"

Contributed by guest blogger Dennis Shanoff

Happy World Environment Day from Vermont Forest Lovers!

Every June 5 since 1972 has been designated by the United Nations as World Environment Day.  The annual event is aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental change. 

 

This year's theme for WED is Forests:  Nature at Your Service.  As an organization that depends on wood as a natural resource, Vermont Woods Studios Furniture places forest conservation at the heart of our mission so we are pleased to support and celebrate this day.

 

Sometimes when I talk about forest conservation, I can see peoples' eyes glazing over, but when I revisit Forest Facts like these offered up on the WED website I remember the primary reason why we started Vermont Woods Studios in the first place:

• Forests cover 1/3 of the earth’s land mass, performing vital functions and services around the world which make our planet alive with possibilities
• 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods
• Forests play a key role in our battle against climate change, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere while storing carbon dioxide
• Forests feed our rivers and are essential to supplying the water for nearly 50% of our largest cities
• Forests create and maintain soil fertility; they help to regulate the often devastating impact of storms, floods and fires
• Forests are the most biologically diverse ecosystems on land, and are home to more than half of the terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects
• Forests also provide shelter, jobs, security and cultural relevance for forest-dependent populations
• Forests are the green lungs of the earth, vital to the survival of people everywhere -- all seven billion of us.

Today we honor many of our friends and colleagues at the organizations worldwide that work to protect the forests and the people and animals who call them home, including ForestEthics, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Ecological Internet.  I'm heading our for a walk in the woods this afternoon.  I hope you'll have a chance to do the same very soon because when you do, I think maybe you'll feel the same way I do about Forest Conservation.

 

We Need Help In The Office (aka Job Posting For Sales and Customer Service Assistant)

Sales are going up and we're hiring at Vermont Woods Studios Furniture!

 

This job opening is for a Sales and Customer Service Assistant.  Know anyone who is smart, fun to work with, loves to learn new things and experienced in online shopping?  Well, send them our way.

The particulars for the job are posted here.  The person will start out working with Rebecca, learning all about our company and products, helping customers over the phone and arranging shipping of our furniture.  Once the basic needs are covered, we try to shape the job around the person's strengths, interests and plans for future professional development so there is much flexibility in pursuing your passion.

Anyone interested in joining us... review the job posting and send me an email at peggy@VermontWoodsStudios.com.  We plan to review resumes and references over the next couple weeks and will hopefully be selecting a candidate around the end of June.

Vermont Made Bedroom Furniture On Sale

 

 

Manjula finished posting our new American Made Bedroom Furniture Sale this morning.

 

This week's sale offers up to 20% off, depending on how many pieces of furniture you buy (minimum is 3 for the 20% discount).  

 

If you've been thinking about indulging in a new bedroom set that will look gorgeous and last forever, check out the sale!