Our Rustic Barnwood Sideboard with Ceramic Sink has an amazing history behind it, much like the Thanksgiving Holiday

Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas for the Green Family

Setting the perfect festive tone in your home for Thanksgiving is the best way to get into the holiday spirit. Every year, with Black Friday and Christmas just around the corner, Thanksgiving seems get overlooked. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it is so relaxed and filled with love, warmth and great food. If you are inviting friends and family over to share the day with, here are some easy thanksgiving decorating ideas sure to please everyone.

DIY Centerpieces and Wreaths - After the popularity explosion of Pinterest, doing things yourself is definitely “in”. DIY door wreaths are extremely easy and can be very inexpensive to create. Then,  skip the pre-made candle centerpiece from Walmart and make a unique table decoration to fit the theme of your home or your thanksgiving meal. Incorporate gourds, Indian corn or cranberries for a fall harvest vibe or if you plan on watching the game after dinner, opt for a sports-themed arrangement. Check out these football roses that are handmade in the USA!

Pick an Element of your Home to Highlight - Create an interesting mantle piece design, decorate your table with candles and arrangements, or display your thanksgiving cheer for your neighbors to see with fall themed porch decor. Don’t overdo it with your decorations or it can be overwhelming to guests. Highlight your favorite features of your home and let visitors enjoy.

Give Thanks – Incorporating the message of Thanksgiving is chic and classy. Display crafts and art made by your children, hang thanksgiving cards from friends and family or create festive collages of photos and things you and your family are thankful for. I saw a cute idea for a “thankful tree” centerpiece in Pinterest (of course) that would make a great Thanksgiving tradition. Every year, everyone hangs the things they are thankful for on the tree. This is a great way to celebrate the holiday with your family.

Showcase Reclaimed Furniture – The Thanksgiving holiday is historically significant and has a rich story behind it. Traditional reclaimed barnwood furniture also has a historically significant background and story to tell, plus they are sustainably crafted. Reclaimed barnwood is full of warmth, charm and history, making a great decorative piece for Thanksgiving. Check out our reclaimed barnwood dining tables and reclaimed barnood buffets and be enchanted by their elegance. Reclaimed barnwood is the perfect solution for the environmentally conscious family

Leave Christmas Decorating for December – Let your guests give thanks in November and worry about decking the halls in December. There are many great ways to decorate the interior and exterior of your home with fall hues and harvest idols without having to bring out the red and green. I love Christmas as much as the next person, but  let me enjoy Thanksgiving first.

Be sure to check out our Black Friday sale (after you’ve finished eating and giving thanks for the things you already possess of course) going on tomorrow through Monday. We’d love to hear your Thanksgiving decorating ideas. Let us know how you decorate for Thanksgiving here in the comments or on our Facebook.

The post Five Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

We received our first fine furniture order from Alaska last week and that makes the 50th state we will have delivered furniture to.  Once the bedroom set arrives safely, we'll have to have celebrate this milestone with a little party. 

It's actually a pretty exciting accomplishment for a small company like Vermont Woods Studios Furniture.

It turns out that packaging and safely shipping your fine furniture is the most challenging part of our business and we're always working to make the system work better, faster, cheaper and stress-free.

DIY delivery requires double boxing with lots of padding for the edges and corners.  Upacking can be difficult.  The file cabinet inside weighs almost 100#.

Our preferred method of shipping fine furniture is to blanket wrap it and send it "white glove delivery" with the world's number one, award-winning furniture shipper:  Clark and Reid.  They are the best.  When you receive your furniture from C&R, they carefully bring it into your home, set it up wherever you like, help you inspect it for any shipping damage and remove the wrapping.  You do nothing but smile. 

However Clark and Reid is not the fastest or the cheapest.  So when customer's are in a hurry and need to save money, we can sometimes (depending on size) package and ship their furniture via common carrier or even FedEx to get it there faster and cheaper.  We call it DIY delivery and it has just recently been made possible with advances in packaging technology.

If your order is eligible for DIY packaging and shippping, we'll let you know.  As you can see, it's not your typical UPS delivery.  It took 4 of us to wrestle this filing cabinet out of the box. 

Finally we get to see what's inside! The 3rd layer of packaging consists of more edge and corner protectors and shrink wrap.

I always try to emphasize to our customers that unpackaging and moving solid wood furniture is not easy.  It's heavy (often >100#) and if it has doors or drawers, you want to be especially careful not to damage or unbalance them.  If you're a "handyman" DIY can save you money and time but for most customers I wholeheartedly recommend the luxury and peace of mind that white glove delivery brings.

The post Packaging and Shipping Your Fine Furniture: White Glove or DIY? appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.

All of our furniture is made to order in small and medium-sized woodworking shops around our state.  Furniture makers work with great care and precision to make sure their pieces leave the workshop in tip-top condition. The last thing we want is to have to ask them to make something over again because it got broken by a shipper.  Not to mention that receiving damaged furniture is a huge let down to our customers and totally unacceptable by any measure.

So over the years we developed a policy where (unless it was something small or a customer absolutely needed a RUSH delivery) we ship furniture via a white glove delivery service.  With white glove delivery, furniture is handled by only one company from the time it is picked up in Vermont until the time it's set up in a customer's kitchen, home office, dining room or bedroom. 

The delivery crew arranges a convenient time for delivery several days in advance.  They arrive at a customer's home in uniform, bring the furniture inside, unpackage it, help inspect it and set it up (including assembly, if any).  For fine furniture I've always felt this is the only acceptable shipping solution.

Our new partner, Copeland Furniture, however is beginning to persuade me that it's possible to engineer a successful DIY (do-it-yourself) furniture delivery system that will save customers money. Copeland has made significant advances in the art, science and technology of fine furniture packaging and shipping over the last couple years.  They are now the world leader in safe, efficient, economical fine furniture shipping. 

So, for Copeland furniture only we now offer free shipping and do-it-yourself (DIY) delivery as a more affordable option for customers who are willing and able to handle their own delivery.  With DIY delivery, your furniture is brought to your doorstep where you must unpackage and inspect it yourself, then sign for it.  You are responsible to bring your furniture into your home and assemble it, if needed.  For chests, dressers and desks, there is typically no assembly required, with the exception of drawer and door knobs.  With beds and tables, you must assemble them yourself– and easy directions are provided.

Customers can save an average of $300 with a DIY delivery.  If you're interested, just give us a call or specify DIY as your choice in the pull-down menu for shipping when you're making an online purchase.  Of course, Copeland furniture can also be purchased with white glove delivery for an additional fee.  You can specify that on the pull-down menu as well.  Either way, if you're purchasing furniture online be sure to review the applicable Furniture Delivery and Inspection procedures to protect yourself in case of any possible problems down the road.

We are eager to get your feedback on this new method of shipping.

The post Fine Furniture Shipping and DIY Delivery appeared first on Vermont Woods Studios.