The Colors of Santa Fe - it's IN the wood!

The furniture I will be selling on the Santa Fe market will be made from a very unique wood. It is common in its species, but very unique in appearance. The trees were injected with a dye prior to harvesting. The result is a very unique colored wood. In the Santa Fe market, finishers expend an incredible amount of time to reach a desired effect that is vibrant and rich in color. A combination of the different colors can be used to achieve the very special look that will set your unique furniture apart from others and boldy proclaim "Santa Fe."


With this unique wood that I have exclusive access to, I can build furniture with the same effect except the color is literally in the wood. Since no piece of wood is the same, the color distribution in this unique wood is erratic and never repeating itself. It comes in a variety of colors and I can create any type of furniture you need. Call me at 303.246.4766 or email bruce@theknottywoodworker.net to discuss your very unique Santa Fe flavored furniture.

Why handmade furniture?

This is a hard question to answer without sounding like a salesman. And, I am, in fact a salesman, also. But, primarily, I am a woodworker, and a knotty one at that. There are many reasons to choose custom, heirloom quality, handmade furniture over "store bought" furniture. And the reason one person chooses to do so may be totally different than another persons reason to buy handmade quality. At the end of the day, however, we have to live within our budget and sometimes this excludes some people from being able to buy a particular item.


The first and foremost advantage to buying furniture from a maker like myself is quality. As with any product, there are quality brands, and there are economy brands. When an item is produced primarily by computerized machines, the propensity for a below standard piece to enter the market is a lot higher.Quality Control is exercised by choosing a sample from several like products in a lot.That one piece may reach company standards. but 3 before it and 1 after it does not. It is not until much further down the road that the weakness is discovered, often times, after it is in the possession of the consumer for some time.
With handmade furniture, at least by The Knotty Woodworker, anyway, inferior aspects are noticed at the time it takes places and corrected right then; a bad joint, a weak board, out of squareness, etc.
This greatly increases the guaranteed quality of your furniture. I will concede that sometimes a flaw may go unnoticed, but the better than average guaranty I offer protects my clients far better than any chain manufacturer's warranty.
Simply put, every aspect of your furniture is deliberated by a critical thinking craftsmen whose name and reputations rides solely on the quality you receive. A satisfied customer may tell a couple of people they know about their experience. A dissatisfied customer will tell EVERYONE they know about their experience. There is no benefit to The Knotty Woodworker for the integrity of each piece I make to be compromised in any way. This is what makes my furniture "heirloom quality." It will be around for your great grand kids to enjoy. Have you ever been frustrated when a dresser drawer fails to operate due to poor quality glide systems? A handmade piece of furniture will offer you more than a lifetime of use.


Probably the next best cited reason that satisfied clients continue to choose handmade furniture over mass produced pieces is dimensions and finish. A custom maker only builds one piece at a time and if you want a desk 32" in height as opposed to the industry standard of 30", it is not an issue. Whereas a mass producer has to alter the flow of production, your specifications dictate the production. For this reason, most customers of handmade furniture are homeowners. There is no worry involved wondering if it will fit in your next apartment. However, a designer that his worth his salt will help the client to consider future needs in regards to the piece being created today. Custom made furniture is tailored to your needs and desires, truly an Expression of yourself.
Along the lines of individual dimensioning, is the ability to have a piece stained and finished to coincide with the overall theme of your home's other woodwork. A mass producer may offer as many as 5 or 6 stains for the same piece. The Knotty Woodworker offers you any stain you wish. With this, you can buy a secondary piece years later and have it match in color and style to previous purchases. The big plants often discontinue a style or stain after a period of time. If you decide two years later that you are ready to purchase bedside tables that match your dresser, you may become very dismayed when revisiting the chain furniture store that sold you the dresser. With this aspect of handmade furniture, you can buy one or just a few pieces at a time to complete the motif of your home.


Yet another advantage to handmade furniture is the uniqueness of your piece. After you and The Knotty Woodworker design your Expression, it will most likely be, and remain, a one-of-a-kind heirloom. This is always the case in my commissioned pieces. I never replicate a custom order. In my freelance ventures, however, the pieces I make that are placed in stores for purchase, I may very well make two or three of the same design. Even at that, however, the uniqueness is very rare. Commercial shops build thousands of the same style and size.Since I am, in effect, building the antiques of tomorrow, this very fact will greatly appreciate the value of your furniture.


Probably the main two reasons that people do not buy handmade furniture are time and expense. We live in a microwave world. Fried chicken? No problem. KFC offers it within 4 minutes of walking through their door. To have it at home, it takes an hour and leaves a mess to contend with. This transfers to our purchasing practices when buying furniture. We can go to a national department store for cheap and fast furniture. If your TV goes out and you have to buy one immediately to catch Sunday's game, you can buy an entertainment center at the same time. Microwave mentality, the give it to me now attitude, definitely causes people to buy manufactured furniture as opposed to handmade. A simple sofa table will take me four days to build and that doesn't account for scheduling. If I have 3 orders ahead of you, that very table can be weeks out.
And then, of course, there is cost. I will not mislead you. Anything I make will cost you more than what you can find in the plethora of stores vying for your business. Although, they are two entirely different products, what I make is initially more expensive. Almost always it is 150% of the cost of machine made items. Sometimes even more.
However, in light of the facts above; quality, size, finish, uniqueness, etc., you are getting far more bang per buck than you are when you purchase run of the factory pieces. A simple thought for you to ponder; How many entertainment centers have you bought? Total up the costs and compare that to one from myself. One from myself that meets your size specifications, functionality ( a drawer exactly where you want it), your stain preference, and the fact that no one has the same piece of furniture, and it is easy to see why you should buy handmade furniture from The Knotty Woodworker.


The lessons put forth above, as I predicted, make me sound like a salesman. And, as I admitted, I have to be a salesman in addition to a furniture maker. Unfortunately, when people realize that the points above are true, it is after they have already spent as much on multiple pieces of the same item as they could have spent for one Expression in Wood by The Knotty Woodworker.


Give me a call and lets discuss your needs, tastes, and budget. You will be amazed at just how affordable my work really is when you view the whole picture. 303.246.4766

Going Blue

The "green" movement is upon us. Whether you buy into the theory of Global Warming or not, I would recommend to any constituent of the Earth to behave in a responsible manner in regards to the bounties that are supplied to us by the Earth. Responsible stewardship is commendable whether or not we are destroying the Earth. I find no fault in anyone attempting to preserve our natural resources, regardless of their motivation or beliefs.
The Knotty Woodworker, being responsible for his use of natural resources, is going "Blue." I am glad you are asking what that means. I will explain it. A trip across Colorado will reveal thousands upon thousands of acres of brown evergreen trees. How can an evergreen be brown, you ask. The Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) is the culprit. It is not a new creature, although it is seeing its heyday right now. The lodge-pole pine trees have been victimized by this critter for ages. Right now, however, its infestation is at pandemic levels. Thousands of acres of our forests are giving up trees to the effects of this insect's activities. The MPB burrows through the bark of a tree and ingests the bark and wood. As it excretes it's food, a fungus starts and thrives in the tree until the tree dies. The result of the fungus is a discoloration, a stain, of blue color embedded in the wood. This kills the tree and then the MPB moves on to another tree until that tree is dead. And then another, then another.




There is much debate as to why the infestation level is so high. Some say a few successive years of warmer than usual winters. Other theories include lower than usual number of wildfires. Regardless of the reason, the result is that acres upon acres of standing evergreens that are now "ever-browns." The impact of the MPB is leaving it's mark in mountainsides with a dead brown canopy of trees. The standing dead trees need to be harvested and used for whatever purpose possible.
To be responsible, we need to take advantage of this influx of lumber rather than let it stand until so weak it falls, and allow it to lay there until it fully decomposes.
The Knotty Woodworker is using this abundant lumber to create heirloom quality furniture. This is the only responsible way I can see to get through this pandemic. The impact on the environment has taken place. All I can do is minimize the impact by utilizing the wood.





So, this is how The Knotty Woodworker is going "green." I am actually going "blue." And rather than spraying the furniture with a solvent based finish such as lacquer or polyurethane, I am going a green step further by applying an all natural, 100% vegetable oil finish. What? Am I using Wesson oil? No, no, and NO!
The finish I am referring to is an oriental practice that goes back over three millenia. Tung Oil. The Chinese have applied tung oil to their woodworking projects for centuries. Tung oil is rendered from the nut of the tung tree. It penetrates the wood as opposed to varnishes and shellacs that sit in top of the wood surface as a sealer and beautifier. Tung oil offers a finish that is impervious to moisture, beautifies the wood and protects it from deterioration, which is the reason lacquer and other solvent based finishes are used.
It takes an incredible amount of time for the tung oil to dry. This is sped up by other tung oil products by mixing it with mineral driers that contain solvent based driers.
The tung oil employed by The Knotty Woodworker is unique in that it contains no mineral driers. It has a drier to speed up the drying process that is all natural itself; 100% Orange Oil (d-Limonene). This provides an all natural, low toxicity finish. As a woodworker, I can't get any "greener" than this. The finished protect is protected and beautified in the most natural way. Here is a raw wood sample and the same piece after application of the 100% organic finish.


Here is a piece of fiddle-back maple in it's natural state.





After the application of all natural tung oil. Another positive of this finish is that it emits an incredible citrus smell that lingers in the wood. A far cry better than the chemical odor of traditional solvent based finishes. Very pleasant.


The Knotty Woodworker can provide you beautiful, heirloom quality furniture with no adverse effect on our environment. Contact me and let's "Go Blue."

Santa Fe

I am now offering my furniture in Santa Fe. I am going to making a few pieces this month to take down and get going. It is all part of the new direction of Expressions in Wood. First, we have registered the trade name of The Knotty Woodworker. With this comes all of the new immenities - cards, mailers and a branding iron to brand our furniture. We have a few different ideas for Santa Fe and will be sharing them soon. We are very excited and look forward to the future.