Description: Seasonal display cabinet

Awards: 2018 Northern Wood Exhibition PEER AWARD chosen as best piece by the participants of the exhibition.

48” x 72” x 26”

Material Hickory, Rosewood & Birch

Finish: Oil and varnish over shellac

Price: Please Inquire

    In our home we decorate by the season, with collections of pottery, wood turnings, blown glass etc. rotating throughout the year, this piece was designed to display. Primarily based around a one hundred and two inch radius which allowed all the parts to be bent and shaped from a single pattern.

    My process includes paging through my lumber collection regularly trying to make a match between materials and ideas. Hickory is a wood that I have not considered before but had collected a few outstanding boards from Michigan and Wisconsin over the years.

Hickory has been relegated to flooring, hammer handles and smoking meat but I think its color, grain and beauty offer more. I also discovered Hickory is more prevalent in Minnesota than I knew, wandering the woods around Pickwick recently I was surprised by its abundance.

Two Sisters

Awards: Best Finish, Peer Award  - 2014 Minnesota Wood Workers Guild Northern Woods Show

Material: Red Birch

Dimensions: W 34" x D 20" x H 76"

Finish: Oil over Shellac

Price: Please Inquire

The first of two cabinets a set intended for a sunny kitchen setting. This one intended for possibly storing spices and beverages. The second will be an open design for plants or a bookshelf.

The interesting story behind these cabinets is the lumber which came from a beautiful twenty eight inch Birch, cut and sawed in Three Lakes, Wisconsin. I had driven by this tree at the end of our driveway for thirty years and never really noticed it. When it was time for it to come down for a garage addition a local sawyer created a nice variety of widths and thicknesses. Our neighbor Bruce Renquist, a designer himself, from Racine, WI. did some sketches for some benches and a table. After some good old fashioned horse trading, he had his furniture and I had six hundred board feet of lumber.

Dimensions: 15”x 28” x 72”

Material: Birch Heart

Finish: Oil and Varnish

Minnesota Woodworkers Guild, Northern Woods Show, award for Best Finish

The second in a series, these cabinets where inspired by the cook in me, the first, a pantry cabinet storing cooking spices and bottles. The second cabinet, similar in form, intended as a home to a kitchen herb garden. The open design features a trellis theme and glass shelves allowing light to penetrate. The material, harvested from a single Birch tree from a neighbors land in Three Lakes, WI, has now yielded its sixth piece of furniture. I find myself wondering how to express my gratitude to a tree other than ensuring that it lives on.

A set of four Walnut chairs inspired by Danish influences accompany a Walnut Dining table. The material for the table and chairs comes from a Walnut tree harvested from the clients family farm.

Winner of the 2016 Best Original Design Award at the Minnesota Woodworkers Guild Northern Woods Show.

A small table intended to sit between two easy chairs. The American Chestnut lumber hails from Houston County, Minnesota. It is estimated that the Chestnut tree once comprised one in four trees in the eastern US. By the 1940’s it had disappeared from the American landscape as the “Chestnut Blight” traveled west from New York state to the Midwest. Small pockets of the tree survived outside the trees normal range in Wisconsin and Minnesota. I have heard and read about the chestnut blight all of my life so I was very surprised when a local sawyer had a small log from a wind damaged tree available. I may never see or work with Chestnut again but will say it is a unique and worthy material. The drawers are quarter sawn White Oak which I thought fit the thirties era as the Chestnut disappeared.

Title: Writing Desk for Hannah

Awards: Best in Show and Peer Award 2011 Minnesota Wood Workers Guild,  Northern Woods Show

Technical Details

Dimensions : 42” x24” x 40”

Materials: Figured Red Oak, Figured Cherry, Santos Rosewood, Maple

Finish: Alkyd Varnish

Price: Please Inquire

Description:

Inspired by my daughter Hannah in her cozy little apartment it occurred to me that everyone needs a space of their own. The desk is designed as a place to organize and correspond, places for papers,  envelopes,  a lap top computer a few plants perhaps. Everyone needs such a place.

I felt the figure in this wood was exceptional the warm colors of the oak and cherry contrasted by the dark rosewoodis an interesting mix that will melt together with time. Each wood in the desk was taken from a single board allowing a unique color and grain matching opportunity.

Bonsai Table

22” x 38” x 28”

Figured Swiss Pear, Figured American Walnut

Finish: Wax over Shellac

Price: Please Inquire

I have lived among the trees, warming my home, cooling my thoughts, providing a living, food for our table, our bodies and souls nourished. I owe the trees my best. I return to the forest each fall to hide among these trees with my thoughts and wonder. Some of these trees have come to me as gifts from friends a log here a burl there. Others anonymously as planks cut from faraway places. I don’t travel much but my trees have. No two alike, as only nature can insure.

The Bonsai table was designed with these thoughts in mind. The Bonsai trees serve to remind us of the connection. The Bonsai table uses natural edges and refined details to represent the connection between man and nature. The table functions to display a small collection of trees or plants in a bay window.

The Promise Chair

Group of Six Dining Chairs

Materials: Sapele Mahogany, Douglas Fir, Figured Red Oak

Price: Please Inquire

From a group of six chairs Promised to someone special many years ago. This chair design has been hanging on my shop wall and in the back of my mind for a long time.  Other chairs have been built and sold, other ideas put ahead of it. Several redesigns considered and finally, like a good wine, this one matured and its time has come.  Sapele  Mahogany, Vertical grain Douglas Fir and figured Red Oak are the materials,  a nice warm contrast in my opinion.  The coopered seats are taken from a single, massive, quarter sawn Douglas fir plank, a wood that has intrigued me for some time,  although seldom used in furniture.  The quarter sawing creates a beautiful straight grained pattern. When we work from the heart we do our best work.

The What’s Left Chest

Material: Figured Cherry and Maple

Dimensions:  W 26” x L 42” x H 25”

Finish: Oil and Varnish over Shellac

Price: Please Inquire

A Blanket chest is designed for the foot of a bed to store quilts and such. The elliptical shape has always intrigued me but was a difficult shape to work with. Everything layed out off the center and the main body of the elliptical box.  Many patterns and layouts gave me the confidence to move forward.

      The figured Cherry Wood was cut from a single plank from the Orchard Country of northwestern Michigan. It took much soul searching and consideration before cutting into this board, I barely felt worthy.   The top is a sunburst pattern with a curly maple pendant.

 The Chest will be part of The What’s Left Project by John Bauer, of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. See http://macrostieartcenter.org/whats-left-lives-touched-suicide/ . The show will be traveling throughout the Midwest during 2016.

Dining Table

Cherry with Padauk inlay

Width 42” x Length 94” x Height 29 ½”

Three Leaves

This table design has been a staple in my shop and in our home with more than one produced. We have one in our Dining room that has seen twenty five years of good service. Heavy hard maple dovetail slides anchor a pleasantly shaped top to an interesting separating base The table closes down to forty two inches round for an intimate setting for two or four and opens to ninety four inches with three leaves for a thanksgiving feast for ten.

Technical Details:

Materials: Walnut, Maple, Spruce, Mahogany,

Ebony, Abalone

Finish: Nitrocellulose lacquer

25.4 inch scale

Always looking for new challenges and experiences in my work. Building guitars is a recent adventure. I have always said a woodworkers best friend is his music during the long lonely hours in the shop. Woodworking and Music can be similar as a form of personnel expression. I have learned that music and woodworking transcends generations as many of my high school woodworking students are currently building acoustic and electric guitars. We are learning together like all woodworking disciplines. Lutherie has its own nuances, tricks, specialty tools, materials and learning curve. Hope you enjoy the two variations.

The guitars on display are combinations of styles and techniques which have intrigued me. The cutaway style seems to be all the rage today. Lutherie tradition dictates certain materials for each component of a guitar. I am interested in discovering for myself how the material selection effects sound and tone. The guitar industry is one of the largest consumers of rare figured woods. The maple and walnut in the two guitars displayed was taken from boards in my lumber pile. The group picture is of a recent group of my students completing their guitars.

Walnut and Ash Table

18”x42”x56”

Price: Please Inquire

The table from a local Minnesota Walnut tree. When I came across the six inch slab it showed just a hint of figure on the rough exterior. We resawed the plank and the ideas came pouring out. The table base is woven from Minnesota White Ash selected for color and taken from a single board. The inspiration for the table comes from the old style woven pack baskets used by trappers . I have always admired the simple and practical design of these baskets. The vertical drawers in the table top store games and the standard supplies of any family room.

Engagement box

Width 8” x Length 11” x Height 3 ¼”

Bubinga, Santos Rosewood and Leather

Price: Please Inquire

A jewelry and keepsake box from a groom to his bride.  I remember feeling honored, awkward and humbled to be a part of this special occasion. With many options for sizes and shapes the storage spaces will store the treasures of this couples journey for years to come.

A Set of Eight Dining Chairs

Technical Details:

American Cherry,

Lake Superior Salvaged Figured Red Birch

Minnesota White Tail Deer Hide

Oil and Varnish Finish

20”W x 18”D x 38”H

Price: Please Inquire

From the beginning, materials influenced the design of these chairs. Eight and twelve quarter cherry tucked away for twenty years in the back of the shop. A breath taking Birch plank taken from a Wisconsin virgin timber log salvaged from the cold depths of Lake Superior where it had rested since early in the previous century. Beautifully tanned local white tail deer hides. All combined for a wonderful palette of materials that seemed destined for one another. Whether in the woods, on the lake or in the shop, I am constantly humbled by God’s work in creating our natural world and the material we work.

Pine Buffet / Entertainment Center

Price:  Please Inquire

I have had a special place in my heart for the Eastern White Pine for as long as I have been tramping the woods. If you are a hunter I am sure you can relate. For the rest of you the White Pine is by far the largest tree in the woods each one unique the best landmarks out there. White pine lumber is also much more stable than the other pines therefore usable for some interesting work. These cabinets are book matched shop cut veneer that create a very interesting pattern of knots that repeat throughout the cabinets.

Writing Desk

Cherry with Bubinga Panels

Width 26” x Length 48” x Height 42”

Price: Please Inquire

This desk may be the most practical piece of furniture I have ever built. I have it on good authority that every nook and cranny is filled and in service. Desks are cool because they are still a necessity. No matter how many gizmos you have at your disposal you still need at least one and in many case several good desks in your life, I have four myself.