Sustainably managing forests is nothing new in Vermont. According to the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, 75% of the landmass in our state is forest land. Over 2,000 businesses in the state rely on those forests to generate ~$1.5B in annual revenue.
“Vermont’s forest products industry generates an annual economic output of $1.5 billion and supports 10,000 jobs in forestry, logging, processing, specialty woodworking, construction, and wood heating. In addition, Vermont’s forest recreation economy (skiing, etc) generates another $1.9 billion in economic output, and supports 10,000 additional jobs.” – VSJF
Despite all the economic activity dependent on our forests, they’re still growing in size and density.
By managing our own forest here in Vermont since 2013, we have witnessed the beautiful harmony of a healthy ecosystem. When Vermont Woods Studios outgrew the spare bedroom in Peggy’s home, our team searched for a permanent home. Above all, our goal was to find a space that would reflect the values of the company and offer a home to showcase the works of Vermont’s finest furniture craftsmen. After a long search, we found Stonehurst. As you can imagine, we love every minute we get to spend out in our forest!
Here are some of our favorite Vermont Made Products
Vermont has always made high quality products. There are hundreds of companies that as Vermonters we are well aware of and use their products on a daily basis. Our audience narrowed our list down a bit, because we wanted to choose products that are nationally known. However, it was still extremely difficult to limit our list to just 10 products made in Vermont. In the future, we will continue to post on the Vermont Woods Studios blog about products made in Vermont, because there are too many good ones that we don’t want to leave out!
Larssen Mid Century Modern Bedroom Collection. Handcrafted in Vermont of real, solid cherry wood.
Mid Century Modern Bedroom Design
Our brand new Larssen Collection features a mid-century modern design, with geometric lines and precision angles. Equally at home in any style room, and with seven individual pieces, this collection is a match for any hardwood furniture lover. Read More
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Sunshine, warm weather, birds singing, more daylight, picnic lunches… what’s not to celebrate during Spring! So if you’re coming up to shop for furniture, bring your boots and build in a little extra time to enjoy Spring at Stonehurst. It’s beautiful! A couple things you can do here that you never thought of doing at a furniture store:
Take A Hike
Hike through our 100 acre woodland at Stonehurst. We located our sustainable furniture store here so you can experience the kind of responsibly-managed forest where your furniture originates. Read More
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Sometimes to make an improvement to a room, you don’t have to completely renovate the space. This past year, I’d been feeling very unsatisfied about my living room and dining space. Instead of completely redoing those spaces, my family replaced our cheap TV console with a wood TV cabinet. And, we replaced our maple dining table and chairs with a darker stained wood dining set that better matches the wood paneling in our dining space.
We like to think that the experience you’ll have at Vermont Woods Studios is unlike that of any furniture store you’ll shop at. There are some obvious ways we’re different, of course. For one, we’re located at an old ski-resort and farmhouse in the foothills of the Green Mountains. And being in an old farmhouse comes with its quirks–one of which is space. With the average furniture store spanning 20,000 square feet, according to a Furniture Today article (2010), our showroom space is approximately 1,500-2,000 square feet.
For the past several years, we’ve donated to the Daughters of Toleza Scholarship, a NPO that assists young girls in Malawi get the financial support they need to attend school. This year we helped three young girls graduate and all are preparing to take the national college entrance examinations this month. Way to go girls!!
Jose Luis Alvarez has devoted his life to conserving monarch habitat in Mexico. He’s traveling to Vermont this summer to help us conserve the butterfly’s habitat here in New England.
I’m super excited today because our friend Jose Luis Alvarez is coming to visit Vermont this fall to collaborate with us on a project to help save the Monarch butterfly. Jose Luis is a silviculturist in Mexico who has devoted his life to restoring the forested winter habitat of the Monarch. Last month I traveled to Michoacan, Mexico to meet Jose Luis & see his work. I love Monarchs & we’ve been conserving their summer habit here in Vermont for many years so I thought maybe we should collaborate and get some Vermont-Mexico synergy going!
Google image search results for ‘real cherry wood”. Half of these are NOT cherry wood. Many are illegal rainforest woods, brought to you by organized crime which has taken root in the global timber industry.
Cherry Wood: Will The Real Color Please Stand Up?
We have conversations with customers every day about the color of real cherry wood furniture. It’s no wonder! When I just googled “real cherry wood” well over 50 shades of red, brown and even yellow came up. Quite a variation, isn’t it? Truth be told, half of these images are NOT of cherry wood.
The Brighton Dining Set is shown in real, natural cherry wood. This photo was taken shortly after the set was made so the cherry is still a light color. Over time, it will darken to a rich reddish brown, similar to the color of mahogany.
When the big American furniture companies started off-shoring their furniture in the 1980s they found it cheaper to use rainforest woods than cherry. But consumers love cherry. So they stained rainforest woods and gave them various trade names containing “cherry”. For example Makore, an increasingly rare African wood being illegally logged in Sierra Leone and Gabon has been sold under the trade name Cherry Mahogany (though Makore is not closely related to either cherry or mahogany). Worse yet, it’s listed as an endangered species due to illegal logging and exploitation by organized crime which has taken root in the global timber industry.
Our Vermont Shaker Bedroom set shows how real cherry wood furniture “ripens” to a darker hue after about a month of exposure to moderate levels of sunlight.
Many times customers come to Vermont Woods Studios looking to buy real cherry wood furniture that matches existing cherry pieces in their homes. After discussions and emailing pictures back and forth they are shocked to find that their “cherry” furniture from Bassett, Ethan Allen or other big “American” companies is not cherry at all but rubberwood, poplar or engineered hardwood.
This rocker shows the range of colors for real, natural cherry wood. The chair’s darker than the cherry in the photos above because it’s older and has been exposed to more light. Notice too, that even within the one rocking chair, there are differences in cherry wood color that are created by grain patterns and grain direction.
At Vermont Woods Studios, our cherry furniture is indeed made out of real, solid North American Black Cherry wood. The color starts out as a light pink and slowly ripens to a rich reddish brown over time, as it’s exposed to light. Nina’s photo of the rocker above shows the range of natural cherry colors after the wood’s been exposed to light for a few months.
Are you interested to learn more? Find tons of information and photos of American made, real cherry wood furniture on our website & send us your questions on Facebook or in the comments section below.
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