Furniture Maker

Established as a cabinet maker and furniture restorer for over 35 years following a 4 year apprenticeship in furniture

restoration & wood turning and attaining my City & Guilds in Furniture construction, I have gained a wealth

of experience and knowledge in the design and construction of furniture through the ages.

Although the company I served my apprenticeship with were not cabinet makers this was not a problem, as I have

always had a natural ability to look at a piece of furniture and know how to make it.

I can't explain how or why but I just know how to make it.  It must be something in my genes passed down through

the generations.

It would be nice to say that the furniture starts as a sketch on a drawing pad; from there a working drawing is made

so that a cutting list can be prepared.

However, sometimes there are no sketches or drawings; sometimes I just have a picture in my head of the piece I

want to make and need to go with the flow allowing my hands and mind to work in unison.

As with all artisans and their art, it is the medium in which they work that dictates how the final piece will turn out.

In my case it is the characteristics of the timber - the grain pattern, the colours, the knots, etc -

that determine the final design.

Being able to see the tree in its natural environment in the forest, controlling the cutting, milling and drying phases

through to the finale of the finished piece is a tremendous buzz that few artisans ever enjoy.

As a cabinet maker for over 30yrs I had always dreamed of having an unending supply of locally grown timber to

create hand crafted items of functional art from.

Although a master in my field of making & restoring furniture I knew little of the process of turning trees

into planks.

The biggest challenge that faced me was not what to do with the wood but how to extract the trees from where

they had fallen (none had fallen by the roadside) and mill them into planks.

And so the journey began, finding a way to extract trees from within ancient forests with little impact to the

woodland floor, drying the timber in an environmental way and educating others that fallen trees have many more

uses then just a form of heat.

Today Forest 2 Furniture focuses mainly on timber processing.

Whether it be for my own purpose or to dry and sell on through the Wood Barn for others to use in their own

projects I still hold true to my original goals; to sell timber that I would be happy to use myself, no twisted, warped,

bowed or insect infested timber.