walnut
Copeland’s New Catalina Walnut Dining Furniture: Coming Soon!
Copeland Furniture, just down the road from us in Bradford, Vermont is famous for it's modern, contemporary solid wood bedroom furniture. A couple years ago, Copeland introduced the new Frank Lloyd Wright® Collection of authentic reproduction prairie-style furniture designed by America's foremost architect.
Well, now Copeland is introducing another new series of high end furniture, The Catalina Walnut Dining Room Collection.
If you're already a fan of Catalina's mid-century modern bedroom furniture, home office furniture, and TV-media furniture, I think you're going to love the dining furniture collection.
The tables, chairs and buffets are all in sync with Catalina's retro-modern shapes and sensibilities, relying on simple, elegant lines that have just enough curve– but not too much. Walnut is the only wood used for the Catalina collection and it is available in both natural wood (as shown) or in a darker slate-on-walnut stain. Dennis and Manjula are working feverishly to get all of the Catalina dining collection pieces up on our website and ready for purchase by week's end. In the meantime, if you have any questions, give us a call.
All Copeland's furniture is 100% American made, right here in Vermont.
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.
Vermont Made Walnut Furniture Featured In Woodworking Network Magazine
We extend our thanks to journalist and woodworker, Jo-Ann Kaiser who featured Vermont Woods Studios Walnut Furniture in Woodworking Network magazine, a respected source of "information and inspiration for professional woodworkers". Jo-Ann's article titled, "American Black Walnut: A Bold & Beautiful Furniture Species" talked not only about the beauty of walnut wood and it's growing popularity but also discussed the danger that walnut trees have been facing over the last 10 years.
It's called "1000 Canker's disease" and it typically kills walnut trees within three years of infection. Similar to other tree-attacking diseases that wiped out the American Chestnut and Elm trees, the spread of this one is fueled by people moving logs, walnuts and any part of the tree from infested areas into disease-free areas. It's spreading from the West to East and has already been found in Pennsylvania.
The situation is alarming and I mention it here in hopes that you will pass this on to anyone who may have walnut trees on their property or who uses walnut for firewood, nuts or lumber. People should contact their state department of agriculture for more information.
It would be a shame to see another beautiful (and valuable) tree species slip into extinction. Perhaps there is something we can do to avoid that.
Defining Fine Furniture: Type of Wood
Similar to the term American Made Furniture, there's no standard definition for "fine furniture". But a customer brought this up yesterday so I thought I'd take a shot at it. At Vermont Woods Studios we specialize in fine wood furniture, rather than upholstered furniture so I'll keep the discussion confined to that.
This may seem odd, but I'm going to put style aside for another subject because I think each creative woodworker has his or her own ideas about style. Naturally there has to be a strategic blending of form and function, but making a judgement about that is personal and subjective– you could write a library of books about it and still not reach a conclusion. I'm not sure style belongs in a definition for fine furniture.
So for now I'll stick to tangible perameters like craftsmanship, uniqueness, joinery, type of wood, type of finish, sustainability and durability– plus one intangible which I'll call karma. Today let's look at the type of wood a piece of furniture is made with first– then we can consider the other characteristics in the next few posts.
Fine wood furniture starts with hardwood (like cherry, maple, walnut and oak) as opposed to soft wood (like pine and other coniferous woods). Furthermore, in today's world (by my definition anyway) those hardwoods are grown sustainably in America as opposed to imported woods that are clear cut from the world's rapidly disappearing rainforests (like ipe, rubberwood, mahogany, jatoba and teak–this ties into a karma discussion). You can learn more about American hardwood species here: cherry wood, maple wood, walnut wood, oak wood.
It's not just the wood species that sets fine wood furniture apart. Once a species is selected, fine woodworkers go to greath lengths to carefully select each board that goes into a piece of furniture, depending on where the board is being placed (like in a drawer front, part of a table top, an accent piece or part of the frame).
Woodworkers select boards based on things like grain, color, texture, shape, character and whether it's part of the tree's heartwood (inner circles of the tree and dark in color) or sapwood (outer circles of the tree and light in color). There are different levels of attention to detail in wood selection and they are reflected in the price of a piece of furniture. Many of our woodworkers in Vermont are aligned with the philosophy of George Nakishima who felt that wood selection is an almost sacred art that honors The Soul of a Tree. Others are more practical but both philosophies on wood selection can be the foundation of a great piece of "fine furniture" depending on what the customer is looking for.
Later we'll talk about how craftsmanship, origin and sustainability add to the definition of fine furniture.
A LARGE Custom Walnut Slab Table
Our friend David Allard and the talented furniture makers at Lyndon Furniture are always coming up with some new, exciting wood furniture design project. Check out this huge custom walnut slab table they recently finished. It's 13.5' long and the two planks in the top are made of 1 ¾" thick solid black walnut.
The legs are made of welded steel tubes that thread through the walnut slab top like through-tenons. On the top, Dave left a gap between the 2 walnut slabs to allow for wood movement. Believe it or not, even kiln-dried wood (like these walnut slabs) expands and contracts quite a bit with changes in humidity and temperature.
Such a simple elegant design, isn't it? But as any amateur woodworker could attest, it's not one to try at home unless you've got the hand of a trained professional. And a crane 
Walnut Wood, Furniture, Trees and Nuts
Walnut wood is one of our customers' favorite woods at Vermont Woods Studios Furniture. It's a strong, durable, dark chocolate-colored wood with fascinating grain– like swirls, curls and burls.
Recently the most popular designs for walnut furniture have been with natural, organic solid walnut slabs that are huge, heavy and thick. They make incredible dining and conference tables that are showstoppers when you walk into a room.
Our friend, artisan Greg Goodman made this custom live edge walnut slab table out of a one of the slabs to the left. I've not seen anything like it. I love the curved base– it gives it a modern contemporary look, don't you think?
We filmed Greg working on a similar slab table. If you're interested in these live edge works of art, you have to watch Greg's part in this video about Vermont Woods Studios craftsmen.
If you're pricing walnut furniture, you can count on spending about 25% more than for other woods. Sadly, walnut is becoming rare due to lack of forest management and disease. In fact a recent blight of something called "thousand cankers disease" is causing great concern about walnut trees all across the country. It seems walnut wood may not be available much longer. Same for the beloved walnut– a nut that reportedly boosts your brain power and provides powerful anti-oxidants.
The walnut trees we're using for live edge slab tables are harvested sustainably, with preservation of the species in mind. The trees are usually victims of urban development– once they were grand old sentinels along tree lined boulevards but age, concrete and road salt have taken their toll.
It's nice to see their beauty being preserved forever under the skilled and artful hands of craftsmen like Greg Goodman.
Furniture Hardwoods from Well Managed American Forests
Wondering how to select the right hardwood for your furniture? For most of our customers, wood color is the first priority when selecting a hardwood, followed by strength and durability. At Vermont Woods Studios we offer exclusively American hardwoods that are harvested responsibly from well managed forests.
Our favorite woods are black cherry, sugar maple, white oak and red oak, and black walnut. We've assembled lots of information about each wood to help you make your decision.
One of the characteristics that customers are often surprised about is that some woods change colors over time, as they are exposed to light. Black cherry is the most notable of these woods. It can start out almost as light as maple wood, but over time it will mature and ripen to a deep, rich reddish brown color.
Have any questions about furniture hardwoods? Give us a call! We'll look forward to hearing from you.
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.
Walnut Furniture: It’s Hot!
We've always offered black walnut as a choice for our Vermont Woods Studios furniture but to be honest, walnut hasn't been very popular these last several years. I'm not sure why, but lately the tables have turned! Just in the last few weeks we've had more inquiries for walnut furniture than over the past 2 years.
I think walnut is a stunning hardwood. It's a chocolate-brown color and generally much more figured than other local woods we work with. Walnut furniture has great character and richness.
Live edge walnut furniture seems to be what's really on fire now. Our friend and woodworking magician, Dan does a lot of work with live edge walnut. I think he's going to be very busy this year.
How do you like this live edge table? Greg built this one a couple months ago. The customer had a hand in designing this live edge showpiece and I love the way it turned out.
Thinking about walnut furniture for your home? Contact us for ideas!
Natural, Organic Walnut Bed Added to Jim Andrews Furniture Collection
We have a natural, organic walnut bed to add to our Vermont Woods Studios Jim Andrews Collection. This was a special design requested by a customer, but we liked it so much, we've decided to offer it as part of our Jim Andrews Collection. The bed features elegant curves in the posts and complimentary curves in the headboard and footboard. It's shown here in natural walnut, but can be made in natural cherry, maple or oak as well.
Have you ever thought of designing your own furniture? Maybe you have an existing piece or set you would like to supplement. Or perhaps you have an odd shaped space you need to fit your furniture into. Or maybe you love the look of one of our natural cherry tables, but the dimensions need to be changed. Or you're looking for a different wood.
Custom and customized furniture are our specialty at Vermont Woods Studios. Each piece of our furniture is made to order and can be easily and affordably customized to meet your needs. Why not give us a call today? 1-888-390-5571. We look forward to hearing from you!
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