Hand crafted Archives

Handcrafted in America: Amish Eastern White Pine Furniture by DutchCrafters

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Jeff Easterling

There are still few furniture crafters who produce heirloom-quality items quite like the Amish. If you can’t travel to the back roads of Amish country in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana in person, online retailer DutchCrafters.com is the next best way to shop, sourcing their collections straight from the woodworkers themselves.

Unsurprisingly, many of these Amish master craftspeople choose Eastern White Pine for pieces like dining sets, cabinets, bookcases, beds and hutches. These are the kinds of furniture items you’ll treasure for a lifetime, and pass on to the next generation – and there’s nothing more sustainable than that. Here’s a selection of gorgeous Eastern White Pine furniture from DutchCrafters, and you can find lots more on the site.

Rustic Pine Panel Bed

“The lovely Amish Pine Wood Panel Bed offers country style luxury for your cozy bedroom. Both headboard and footboard wear rich raised panels along with sturdy kiln dried Eastern white pine wood. Pine wood prices make shopping for solid wood furniture even better! Pine is a softer wood, but offers plenty of stability. It’s offered at a lower price than other hardwoods, making solid wood furniture more affordable. This pine bed is from the Heritage Pine Collection that ships for free, saving you even more money! Available in Twin, Full, Queen and King sizes.”

Amish Pine Wood Cafe Hutch

“This massive Pine Cafe Hutch makes a great addition to any kitchen, dining room, or “Man Cave”.

Handcrafted from solid Eastern White Pine Wood, this unique hutch is built for functionality over anything else. With space for a mini refrigerator and microwave, as well as a variety of cabinet doors and drawers for plenty of storage options, this stunning Cafe Hutch will truly turn any room into an all-in-one dining station.”

Amish Pine Kitchen Island

“Our Pine Kitchen Island is a perfect table option for either a small apartment or a large house. It does not take up much room and can fit in the small kitchen area of an apartment or a basement. Many customers choose to paint the base while staining the kitchen island top. Order finish samples to complete the custom furniture look of your new kitchen island.”

Amish Drop Leaf End Table

This compact end table features two drop-leaf surfaces so it can expand on demand, and you can choose from a selection of wood stains for a customized look. It’s made of premium grade Eastern White Pine.

Amish Liberty Pine Bench

This entryway classic is the perfect place to put on your shoes before heading out the door, and it features storage space underneath and a high back. It’s also made of premium grade Eastern White Pine, with optional distressed and antiqued finishes available.

PineSkins: A Textural Textile Made Out of Pine Tree Bark

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Jeff Easterling

Pine Skins pine tree bark textile

While many forestry operations reclaim waste like bark to transform it into mulch or biomass for energy, sometimes, it goes to waste. A new concept called “PineSkins” by Studio Sarmite finds a novel new use for it: transforming it into a leather-like material that’s surprisingly supple, and usable for all sorts of projects.

pineskins

“The pine bark differs from traditionally used tree barks; it cannot be harvested from a living tree. A pine tree would die without its skin. Therefore the bark is harvested in collaboration with a tree cutter. Harvesting takes place right after the tree cutter cuts the tree for his business. This leather-like material surprises with its softness in contrast to the thick and harsh character associated with pine trees. Fresh bark is treated with natural ingredients that preserve its softness. Afterwards it can be coated with an enriching layer of finishing and colour pigments.”

“It is important for me as a designer to let the material take the shape it wants to take. We often bend and transform materials into shapes we envision. However, for me that magic happens when the material determines what it wants to become. As a result I design every day products that respect the character of the bark and in its shape reminds us on trees with its irregular shapes.”

It really does look like leather, and it’s interesting to think about what kinds of applications it could have in various industries. Designer Sarmite Polakova, who believes that each material, new or old, “has a story to tell,” pictures it woven into baskets or cut into rugs. You could also imagine it in use as wallpaper, place mats, notebook covers, handbags and other items.

Pineskins baskets

She doesn’t say exactly how it’s created, other than those “natural ingredients” that keep it pliable long after it’s stripped from the tree, but her project isn’t the first to use bark this way. The Ugandan traditional craft of barkcloth making is one example, while “tapa cloth” is a bark cloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean from species like the paper mulberry tree. Both are often used for clothing.

Sarmite’s “PineSkins” are a cool way to utilize excess materials generally thought of as un-marketable. Check out two more examples – pine needles transformed into renewable plastic, and wood floors made of waste pulp.

Hyper-Realistic Sculptures Carved from Eastern White Pine

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Jeff Easterling

At first, you might look at Randall Rosenthal’s artwork and think – what’s so special about this? It’s just a stack of newspapers, or a box with some cash on it. But reach out to touch it and you’d be in for quite a surprise – because it’s all made of wood. Eastern White Pine, to be specific, a smooth and highly malleable wood that’s perfect for achieving incredible detail like this.

Each sculpture is carved from a single solid block of pine and painted with acrylics. Even the paper, rubber bands and skillfully crafted corrugated edges on cardboard boxes are carved from the wood.

What makes these creations even more amazing is that Rosenthal isn’t looking at some kind of source material while he’s creating each one. He sculpts them as he goes, achieving incredible realism with nothing but his imagination.

See more of Rosenthal’s work at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery.

White Pine Custom Closets: Inspirational Organization

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Jeff Easterling

Just as it’s ideal for any other kind of cabinetry, Eastern White Pine makes a great choice as a main material for custom closets, whether you’re building your walk-in dream closet or adding new doors to an existing closet. It’s less expensive than most other solid woods, yet stronger and more aesthetically appealing than synthetic materials and composites.

Carpenters love working with Eastern White Pine because it’s so easy to cut and carve, plus you can paint or stain it virtually any color for effects ranging from the subtle and natural to the dramatic. It’s lightweight and strong, holding up under heavy loads of clothes and shoes.

Many custom closet manufacturers offer white pine as an option when designing the perfect closet based on customer specifications. The black-painted modern closet seen above was crafted from Eastern White Pine by Jaffa Group. The top photo, showing a rustic custom closet by Artistic Design for Living, offers up inspiration for contrasting finishes.

Delnero Custom Furniture Company of New York builds beautiful hand-crafted built-in closet cabinets that can be inserted into existing closet space, or stand alone in rooms without closets.