Photo Contest 2010 – Results 3/3

The third and final installment of our Photo Contest results contains several of our favorites. Enjoy!

This custom built-in window bench looks great in this room and made most of us want to pick up a book and settle in.

I can’t decide what looks better – the ship or the Hall Table underneath it!

Can you just say ‘aww’? This adorable dog makes this dining table look absolutely adorable.

Marleen’s Highland Dining Table and sideboard look great together!

Nicole has a great dining room set! And great photography skills – she was one of our Honorable Mentions.

This Waterfall bed fits in perfectly with the feel of the oriental decor in this bedroom.

This photo shows off the dovetail joinery of our drawers and the gorgeous cut of our wood… but it’s hard to look beyond the cute cat. Nick doesn’t need to get a cat bed – it looks perfectly happy in our Craftsman chest.

Thank you for looking at the results and entering the contest! We all enjoyed it. Keep an eye out for more blogs in the future – especially for one on our Cutting Edge event for those of you who can’t make it down for the festivities.

Photo Contest 2010 – Results 2/3

Here’s the second installment in our Photo Contest results posts. We hope you enjoyed the last photos and the following ones as much as we did. We’d appreciate your feedback, along with any suggestions for the future. Would you participate in this event again?

Enjoy the photographs!

Penny got her stereo cabinet just in time for the Holidays! It’s great to see that she put it to good use.

The wood on this dining table is absolutely stunning!

This photograph of John’s cheese board is making me wish it was the Holidays all over again!

Juliet’s Entrance Bench and Waterfall TV Console complement each other perfectly.

Our Loft Beds are great for a child of any age and the Toy Story figurines are the perfect subject of this photograph.

Judy’s set of photographs had all of us wishing that we were kids again so we could play in this great family room. Her built-in bookcases add to the flow of the room.

Two words – cozy and practical! Featuring a Crofters coffee table and a corner wine cabinet, you can’t go wrong!

Neal’s Linnaea living room won over the owners in the ‘Best Representation of the Furniture’ category. His Linnaea sofas and coffee table look absolutely gorgeous when paired with his interior.

The Glasgow Equipment console looks absolutely gorgeous in any situation, especially next to this stone fireplace.

This completely custom desk would make a great office for anyone!

Keep an eye out for the last Photo Contest results in the next week or so! in the meantime, we’re working on new events and activities. We are excited to see you all in the next few months.

Photo Contest 2010 – Results 1/3

When Hardwood Artisans came up with the idea of throwing a Photo Contest, everyone was beyond excited. However, we didn’t expect the great response that we got. For weeks on end, everyone had fun admiring the photographs. We all swelled with pride when we saw what great set ups you all have. Some of the dogs and cats included even caused our office people to have fits of giggles and admiration.

These photos are just too good to keep to ourselves! We want everyone to see just how talented our customers are. Plus, doesn’t everyone want a little ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ in their life? We are splitting up the results into three posts, just to be sure we don’t overwhelm you with the talent of our customers.

Here are some of the submissions for you to enjoy.

This is the Grand Prize winner – a gorgeous living room featuring a Crofter’s sofa and chairs, a Shaker coffee table, and a Waterfall television console.

Looking beyond the cute dog, this living room is very attractive and that isn’t my Hardwood Artisans bias speaking. David knew exactly what he was doing when he placed his two Parlor chairs, Parlor sofa and Highland rocking chair in the same room!

This room is absolutely beautiful. From the Mackintosh Sectional, Custom Entertainment Center, Waterfall coffee table, to the Hardwood Artisans Custom Fireplace mantel, we all want to move in.

This Classic Hampton dining table is no longer available, but the standard Hampton style is. Either way, Doug and Maryellen have one stunning dining room.

Getting work done while sitting at this desk must be a cinch. Entirely custom from the knobs to the desk shape, Mark Gatterdam had a lot of fun collaborating with the customer when it came to creating this office.

This Waterfall bench chest and Empress chest look great next to each other! I can’t help but want one of my own.

This bedroom is so cheerful and the Waterfall bed looks right at home!

Leesa’s Woodley Loveseat futon was one of the first submissions to our contest! It looks like this is more the cat, Kefira’s, chair than Leesa’s, however.

Heather had her dining room set custom designed – as you can see, that was a great choice!

If you have any questions about the above photos or want to look into purchasing one for yourself, contact one of our showrooms! We do everything possible to keep our customers happy, but unfortunately, the cute animals are not offered with our collections. The next installment of posts will be up within three days, so keep an eye out for it!

Trivets: The process behind making a gift for you!

We are excited about our upcoming Lemonade Social and looking forward to seeing all of you there.  We are working hard making a gift to give you at the Lemonade Social.  This year, the owners have designed a special trivet we think you will enjoy.  The best part about the trivet is that it uses up scrap wood which saves wood from being wasted.  The project begins with a can full of scrap wood.  Our scrap wood comes from projects which used larger pieces of wood.  If you look closely enough at this photo you can see pieces of wood that were used to make drawers:

Scrap Wood

Scrap Wood

There are a lot of tree huggers here at Hardwood Artisans, and we try as hard as we can to reduce waste and energy.  Have you ever seen our striped Suzy Cubes?  They are made of scrap wood as well.

Here is a walk through on how the trivets are made, at the Lemonade Social you can see it happen right in front of you.  You can even take home the one you watched being made!

It all starts with one of our talented craftsmen.  He or she places a piece of scrap wood onto our CNC router.  CNC stands for Computer Numerically Controlled.  You can learn more about them here.  The machine makes cuts into the wood just the right size of the trivet, as well as the holes in the trivet.  Here is an image of one of our craftsmen with the piece of wood.  He will place it onto the orange machine right behind him:

Craftsman picking out the right piece of scrap wood to place on the CNC router behind him

Craftsman picking out the right piece of scrap wood to place on the CNC router behind him

The piece of wood comes out with the proper holes in it, as well as the shape cut out.

When it comes out of the CNC router it looks like this

When it comes out of the CNC router it looks like this

The craftsman will then bring it over to an area set up with a drill bit.  He will run the drill bit along the edge where the trivet has been cut.  This cuts it free from the rest of the wood and rounds the edges over, making them smooth.  We built a box overtop the drill bit to ensure the proper height for rounding the edges of the trivet, it looks just like this:

Cutting the trivet from the block of wood and rounding the edges

Cutting the trivet from the block of wood and rounding the edges

The trivet will get sanded down and will be ready for you to take home and use!  Join us for the Lemonade Social, Saturday and Sunday June 26th and 27th and see the process for yourself!  We are planning to make about 400 trivets and staying busy doing it!  Here are a few we have already done:

The trivets we have compeleted thus far, only 350 more to go!

The trivets we have compeleted thus far, only 350 more to go!

For more information about the Lemonade Social click here.  We hope to see you there!

A Chat with Matt Donohue, the Winner of Shop Time with Greg Gloor

Besides the owners’ saw-cutting at the grand opening of our Fairfax showroom last weekend,

Owners (left to right): John Hillgren, John Buss, Mark Gatterdam, Ricardo Berrum, Kevin Carlson, Curt Smay

Owners (left to right): John Hillgren, John Buss, Mark Gatterdam, Ricardo Berrum, Kevin Carlson, Curt Smay

Hardwood Artisans version of a ribbon-cutting

Hardwood Artisans version of a "ribbon-cutting"

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the auction of 30 hours in our Woodbridge shop with general manager Greg Gloor.

Greg Gloor, Matt Donohue, and auctioneer Stan Schelhorn

Greg Gloor, Matt Donohue, and auctioneer Stan Schelhorn

Of 15 bidders, Matt Donohue placed the winning bid at $1,650 – a real bargain, he said, since few finished pieces of Hardwood Artisans furniture cost so little, and on top of that, he gets shop time with one of the masters to build his own piece.

Matt is a budget analyst for the Army by day, but in his free time he loves to do woodworking in his basement shop in Burke, VA. Keep reading for a full interview on what he wants to do with his prize.

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