We design and build custom furniture, cabinets and millwork in Manchester, MI.
Whether it’s a large run of frame-and-panel doors, a full kitchen remodel, mouldings to match historic woodwork, or an entirely custom heirloom furniture piece with hand-cut dovetail drawers, designed specifically for you and your space—we can make it.
[ m a c h i n e r y ]
Every aspect of the process is important to us, including the machinery and tools we use: our shop is built around a collection of vintage and antique machinery (circa 1900-1970), collected from around the country.
Some acquisitions are bittersweet, obtained at auction from historic millwork facilities who had purchased them new from the manufacturer in the nascent 20th century, shuttering their doors after generations.
Most are of unknown provenance—exhumed after languishing in barns for years (or decades), missing parts, beset by rust, and often damaged while last being moved—a potentially tricky endeavor for top-heavy machines weighing several tons. Painstaking restoration involved brazing cracked castings, pouring new babbit bearings, rebuilding motors, rewiring, stripping and painting—except hand scraping of the cast iron tops and fabrication of a new tenoner motor housing, everything was done by us, in our shop.
Every aspect of the process is important to us, including the machinery and tools we use: our shop is built around a collection of vintage and antique machinery (circa 1900-1970), collected from around the country.
Some acquisitions are bittersweet, obtained at auction from historic millwork facilities who had purchased them new from the manufacturer in the nascent 20th century, shuttering their doors after generations.
Most are of unknown provenance—exhumed after languishing in barns for years (or decades), missing parts, beset by rust, and often damaged while last being moved—a potentially tricky endeavor for top-heavy machines weighing several tons. Painstaking restoration involved brazing cracked castings, pouring new babbit bearings, rebuilding motors, rewiring, stripping and painting—except hand scraping of the cast iron tops and fabrication of a new tenoner motor housing, everything was done by us, in our shop.
[ p h i l o s o p h y ]
We live in a world of people increasingly alienated from their employers, their environment, their fellows, themselves. This is the inevitable denouement for a society addled by greed, made effete by its imperative for growth.
Our shop is a manifest repudiation of this fact: designed to be the antithesis of commodification, overconsumption, mass production, exploitation. It is a living monument to the things that matter: authenticity, honesty, quality, respect.
Our sole aspiration is to continue making great work without violating this edict; that’s enough.
“The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example.”
- Henry Miller
We live in a world of people increasingly alienated from their employers, their environment, their fellows, themselves. This is the inevitable denouement for a society addled by greed, made effete by its imperative for growth.
Our shop is a manifest repudiation of this fact: designed to be the antithesis of commodification, overconsumption, mass production, exploitation. It is a living monument to the things that matter: authenticity, honesty, quality, respect.
Our sole aspiration is to continue making great work without violating this edict; that’s enough.
“The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example.”
- Henry Miller
To create something truly enduring & beautiful, compromises cannot be made, full stop.
There are no shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts.
