A full 100% of Amish furniture is hand crafted for each customer, and it seems that furniture designers are taking that approach to heart, even now preferring to use natural or re-purposed wood for projects.
Using natural wood in furniture and interior design isn’t a new concept, but it is one that a growing number of designers are leaning towards.
Stripping and painting a piece of furniture before placing it in a room was fairly commonplace until recently, when designers started expressing a desire to keep the natural wood present to enhance the beauty and natural feel of the piece.
“The natural colors of walnut, cherry, maple, sassafras, hickory and oak are so beautiful, I can’t find any reason to cover them up,” Ohio-based furniture designer Freddy Hill said.
Of course, designers often use a clear stain or a simple coat of varnish for aesthetic or safety purposes, but for the most part, they prefer to keep it natural.
However, even more designers, like Sheryl Kline, are designing old furniture in new ways.
Kline’s home includes a garage filed with old, wooden furniture, but it isn’t from her home. These items were all bought from various vendors and sales, and are slated to be re-purposed and sold again.
In fact, most of the pieces in Kline’s garage have already been slated for sale by interested buyers.
Her garage is more like a barn, measuring 45 feet by 90 feet, and has at least 50 pieces of furniture in it, she said.
Last December, she redid her bathroom, complete with old wood pieces. After her instagram post about the remodel went viral, she decided to take her love for re-purposing old furniture to a professional level.
“She really surprises me with what she tries to attempt,” her husband Doug Kline said. “There’s stuff that I look at and say, ‘there’s no way,’ but she turns a pig into a peach sometimes.”
Kline said she looks to her imagination to make a piece new again, but that she is also selective when purchasing furniture to remodel.
“I don’t want to preserve something that will fall apart,” Kline said.
Preferring to let her imagination and skill run wild with her work, Kline is less of a fan of natural wood than others.
However, those who work with natural wood are all about it.
“What’s most important to me is trying to distill my designs down to their barest element. Nothing is added simply for the sake of decoration,” concluded Hill.