The great thing about looking for a retailer or manufacturer of
rustic log furniture is there are plenty of sellers out there these
days, especially with the age of the world wide web. Since the birth of
the internet everyone and there brother seem to have tried to start
making and selling all types of rustic furniture online, but what I am
sure that they found out is that making log furniture the right way is a
hard task to achieve. Now don't take me the wrong way there are some
great builders of this style of furniture and you will notice they are
the craftsmen that have been around for a while. So knowing this let me
tell you how to make the right decision on choosing your rustic
furniture.
One of the first things you need to decide is the
species of wood you would like to go with, there are dozens of them out
there, but only a couple of good species that will stand up to the
elements outside. There is hickory, cypress , pine(not recommended),
aromatic cedar, eastern white cedar, Northern white cedar etc. As for
the species I mentioned I can tell a little about each, hickory is a
nice species but I noticed the furniture I see made is that the diameter
of the wood is always small and I get a little suspicious of the
strength of it. Cypress, has hardly no grain that I see compared to the
rest. Pine is absolutely not for me, it is sappy and soft and it is not
very durable. Aromatic cedar is a beautiful wood but when it weathers if
turns dark in the elements untreated. Eastern white cedar people will
say it is the same as Northern white cedar, but let me tell you its not,
I know from working with it. The wood is really knotty and hairy
compared to Northern white cedar. The looks are similar in color and the
aging process is the same. As for Northern white cedar it weathers to a
beautiful silvery gray if untreated and exposed to the elements.
Northern white cedar can with stand the elements for years, some say
that it will last for 50 years outside untreated, but I can tell you by
experience that it really only last for 20 years. White cedar is not
sappy at all, making it easier to stain or varnish unlike other species,
like pine that will actually have the sap come out years later, right
through the paint or varnish that was on there.
Once you decided
the species the next thing to do is find the retailer out there selling
the log furniture with that wood. When you locate this seller, keep in
mind that if that seller is just a middleman, you will not get the
service you will get from the actual manufacturer. More than likely, if
that person is not the manufacturer and is just a website owner or guru,
it is probably just a drop ship situation and they will surely tell you
they can get you the furniture right away, when they have no idea of
the inventory or how busy the manufacturer really is (don't be fooled
with factory direct, sales pitches). Second, just how much can that
person really know about rustic log furniture if they are just an order
taker. Dealing with the person who is actually handcrafting your
furniture and can tell you exactly when it will be done, is by far a
more reliable way to purchase your furniture. Trust me, there are more
websites out there selling log furniture then there are manufacturers of
it.
Now we can get to the construction of the log furniture. Some
log furniture is sanded smooth, some are skipped peeled, some have the
bark on and some are completely peeled. As for which one is better, I
can only tell you what I think. The sanded log furniture definitely
takes away from the rustic feel, skipped peel is a nice look, but I
wonder about the smoothness of the wood with just a peel on parts of the
log. The furniture with the bark left on definitely has to have some
sort of finish on it to keep the bark on, and sometimes I have seen
where the bark will peel off over time. Completely peeled log furniture
is smooth with out splinters and can easily be treated and has the true
rustic look and feel. Getting past that you should then take note of
how the log furniture is actually connected together. Some furniture is
just butted up together and is nailed, I do not recommend that style of
construction. Most have a mortise and tenon connection, which is
extremely durable. Things to watch out for with this is the size of the
dowels, some out there will go with a smaller diameter dowel meaning
their logs are usually smaller too. I recommend asking the diameter and
make sure it is at least 1.25", since that is the weakest point of the
furniture. The diameter of the logs should be no less than 3" as far as I
am concerned. Most of the rustic log furniture I see on the internet
does not meet that size on a good percentage of there lines of
furniture, even though it looks large in the pictures I would definitely
ask the sizes of the logs to get a good comparison from one builder to
the next. The hardware that is used on the log furniture is a big factor
also, because if you are going to have your furniture exposed to the
rain and snow or what ever you don't want the hardware starting to bleed
or rust, all the hardware should be zinc coated on all parts of the
furniture. This is one of the many ways that some of the manufacturers
and garage builders cheapen the quality of the furniture. Another thing
to look for in the hardware part of it is whether they nail or screw the
furniture together, screws are the better way to go than nails, but
nails that are hot dipped in glue are just as good as screws. The nails
without the glue coating will actually start to back out over time due
to the fibers of the wood pushing on them. If you take a closer look at
the pictures and ask some of these questions you will get two things out
of it, 1. You will find the better quality log furniture and 2. You
will find out if that person who is selling you the furniture really
truly knows anything about rustic furniture.
Other than
construction or species the only thing I can tell you about looking for a
quality piece of rustic furniture is that you should take a closer look
at the company you are dealing with. Building rustic furniture is not
like building a square table that can be pre cut to length and then put
together on an assembly line. Rustic furniture needs plenty of design
work, custom fitting, lots of judgmental decisions being made do to the
differences of the sizes of stock, and craftsmanship that you do not get
from the builders that have 75 employees, there is now way that all the
employees have these kind of skills or patience or pride, they are on
an assembly line slapping the pieces together and getting the furniture
out the door to you, plus they have the big money to market the product
and get the exposure to be seen by the public. Notice while your
looking on the Internet or anywhere else that there are plenty of sites
or stores with the same manufacturers, these are the big companies.
Getting your rustic furniture from a small company that has been in
business for at least 10 years and takes pride in every hand fitted
piece, will give you all the things you need to get a quality piece of
rustic furniture that will last for a long time to come.
Joseph LaPointe has been making log furniture since he was 15
years old in his family business which has been in business for over 30
yrs successfully making quality log furniture. With this kind of
experience you are sure to recieve valuable information.
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