Vermont Workshop
This carefully restored three story cow barn was converted to a workshop in 1992. It is built into an incline, which was used to provide access for hay wagons or tractors to each of three levels. Now we can use this practical idea to easily move the furniture from the main shop on the third floor to the finish room on the second floor. With so many of the traditional farm buildings in the area falling into decay, it is good to see this wonderful old barn being looked after and given a new purpose in life. The barn currently employs five craftspeople.
The Craftspeople:
The five dedicated people who make the furniture here are not production line workers, they are skilled craftspeople. Each piece is made to order, and is a project undertaken by one person, who will see the job through from shop drawing to final finish. It is, therefore, with great pride that our furniture makers sign and date each piece before it leaves the workshop, and finds its way into your homes.
A Guided Tour:
All of the pieces offered by Cotswold Furniture Makers are made to order here in our Vermont workshop. What follows is a guided tour, in pictures and in words, of how we set about making a piece of furniture from rough lumber through to the final finish.
- Each board is checked carefully and sorted by color, grain and width.
1. Sorting the Boards
Our rough lumber boards, consisting mainly of wide American Black Cherry and quartersawn White Oak of varying thickness, are stored in our climate-controlled lumber room. Here they are sorted for color, grain and width before being cut to rough length. We carefully choose the boards and match the grain for each piece of furniture we build.
The best 1" boards are separated out and marked for drawer fronts. The best 1¼" boards are saved for table tops. The next best boards are used for side panels and components. Other boards are used in places where they will not be seen, such as for interior components. Every cut piece is marked and tracked to ensure symmetry of grain in the completed piece.
It takes great skill on the part of the craftsman to “read” the boards, and predict the picture that will be created when they are placed together in the finished piece. A good eye will lend balance to the piece, while a poor grain match will cause a lop-sided look.
2. Milling
Once the boards have been cut to rough length, they are brought from the lumber room to the main workshop, where they are milled to their final dimensions. Great care is taken to maximize yield and to ensure that the components are dimensionally perfectly accurate, so that frames and carcasses assemble square and true.
3. Joinery
We use traditional joints to build our furniture because they continue to provide the strongest way to hold two pieces of wood together.
The main joint employed in all our furniture is the mortise and tenon. With the aid of modern adhesives it provides excellent strength. The main application for this joint is where two components meet at right angles, typically at the junction of a rail and a leg.
For drawer construction we use traditional dovetails to join solid maple drawer components. Accurately cut dovetails are extremely strong, and when the drawer is opened, our owners enjoy seeing a perfect row of dovetails down the front edge.
The Cross halving joint and the bridal joint are also used, mainly in the construction of pedestals for tables and some chair joints.
4. Assembly
This is where all the effort involved in marking and tracking individual components really pays off. It is always exciting to see matched legs, panels and drawer fronts finally come together to create symmetry in the assembled piece. At this stage you can see why each piece of furniture is truly unique.
5. Finishing
Once the furniture is built, it is brought downstairs away from the dust, where it is finished and prepared for shipment. During finishing we sand the surfaces to an incredibly fine 600 grit.
On a practical level, finishing provides the necessary surface protection against a lifetime of daily use. On another level, finishing allows the wood to reveal its true character. The oils that we hand-rub into our pieces, penetrate the wood to reveal hidden colors and accentuate beautiful grain patterns.