From your tree to a piece you keep

One tree, start to finish

The cherry urn on my wooden urns page began as a cherry tree that came down in a storm at a customer's house. I cut a big section of the trunk, milled it into slabs and boards, dried them, and built the urn. Right now a friend's family tree is lying in his yard waiting to be slabbed, and it is going to become a bench.

Why this is rare

Plenty of shops build furniture. Very few take a tree from the ground to a finished piece. The ones selling memorial benches, urns and caskets online are mostly resellers, importers and stone or steel companies. A tree-to-table piece needs someone with a mill, a way to dry the boards, and the patience to wait for them. That is the work I like best.

What happens to your tree, step by step

1. Send me photos. Start with photos of the tree. If it looks like a real project, I come and look at it.
2. The tree comes down. If it stands in the open and will not endanger the house, I fell it myself. A big tree near a building goes to my arborist, who limbs it and takes it down safely. I can handle all of that for you, or you can deal with a tree service yourself.
3. The trunk is cut into logs. Usually eight to ten feet long. For a big table, say one that seats twelve, ten or twelve feet.
4. The logs are milled. My chainsaw mill cuts slabs up to 27 inches wide, at any length. For bigger logs, a sawyer brings a bandsaw mill to the site.
5. The wood dries. This is the long part. Air drying takes about a year per inch of thickness, so a three-inch slab takes about three years. I have access to local kilns that dry it in about two weeks. Before final planing, a slab rests in the warm shop and gets planed in stages, so it can move and settle before it becomes furniture.
6. I build the piece, and you choose the finish with the real boards in front of you.
7. The offcuts come back too. There is usually wood left for keepsakes: cutting boards, picture frames, serving trays.

How long it takes

Two months is about the shortest time from felling a tree to a finished piece, using a kiln. Air dried, it takes years. If you want something sooner, I can build from wood I have already dried while yours is still drying.

What your tree can become

Just about anything I build: a dining or kitchen table from wide live edge slabs, a bench for the garden or the hallway, an urn or a casket planned ahead, shelves, a mantel or built-ins for the house the tree stood beside, and smaller pieces for the family.

Not every tree makes good furniture

It is better to hear this before the tree is cut than after.

• Size. For furniture, a trunk needs to be at least about 8 inches across.
• Metal. Nails, fence wire and old hardware grown into a yard tree are common, and the bark hides them. A log cannot really be checked for metal, so I check the slabs and boards with a metal detector before they go near my machines. Every reclaimed board gets the same check.
• Rot and storm damage. Some of it is beautiful, like spalting. Some of it means the wood will not hold together.
• Timing. A fallen tree can often wait about two years, depending on the weather and where it lies. A log held off the ground lasts much longer than one in mud.

If a tree is coming down

Call before the tree service cuts it into short rounds. Ask them to leave the logs eight to ten feet long. Logs cut to firewood length are lost for furniture.