Workshop & design studio · Lebanon, Ohio
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Cabinetry Finishes Our Craft Trade
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The Signature

A chair built the way chairs were built before they were manufactured.

Green ash bent over the steam box and left to take its shape. Spindles seated by hand into a saddle carved from a single plank. Legs wedged home so the joint draws tighter under the weight of whoever sits down. It is a form two centuries old, made here in Lebanon, Ohio, for the table you gather around on ordinary evenings.

Explore the seating Inside the workshop
Continuous arm Windsor chair, hand-finished in black over a red historical ground
Continuous Arm Windsor
Black over a red historical ground

This workshop has always been interested in the quiet relationship between timber, light, and the proportion of a room.

We build Windsor seating, period case goods, and architectural joinery from solid American hardwood, color it by hand from a library of nineteen finishes, and intend all of it to age into a house rather than merely furnish one.

  • Solid HardwoodCherry, curly maple, and oak in solid stock throughout, chosen board by board for grain and color before the first cut is made.
  • Traditional JoineryMortise-and-tenon frames and hand-cut dovetails, where the joint carries the load rather than the fastener.
  • Bench-Built in OhioMilled, assembled, and hand-finished under one roof in Lebanon, by the people whose name is on the door.
  • Made to Be InheritedFurniture intended to outlast the room it was made for, and to be handed on rather than replaced.

By Room

Begin with the room.

Explore selected works
Dining room with a stretcher-base table and black Windsor chairs

Dining Room

Tables, cupboards, and seating for the room where the day settles

 Built-in bookcases flanking a stone fireplace

Living Room

Case goods and occasional tables for the quiet hours

 Black painted washstand with a copper basin

Bedroom

Beds, chests, and night stands for the most private room in the house

 Tiger maple secretary desk with the writing surface open

Office

Desks, bookcases, and architectural libraries
Dining room with a stretcher-base table and black Windsor chairs beneath a glazed cupboard

Measured Design

Proportioned to the room it will stand in.

A dining table is one of the few things in a house whose dimensions are decided by the walls around it. Rather than asking you to choose the nearest listed size, we begin with your room, your ceiling height, and the way light crosses the floor through the afternoon, and work back from there.

Chairs need share neither species nor finish with the table they are drawn up to. A black Windsor against a natural cherry top is among the most common pairings to leave this workshop.

Dining room furniture

Four Benches

What leaves the workshop.

Seating, case goods, architectural joinery, and the occasional commission that belongs to none of those categories. All of it built from solid stock in the same building.

Windsor chairs drawn up to a curly maple dining table in morning light

Windsor Chairs

Green ash bent over the steam box, seats saddled by hand, legs wedged home so the joint tightens under the person sitting in it.

Explore the seating
Curly maple secretary desk with its writing surface open to the window

Handcrafted Furniture

Period case goods and tables in cherry, curly maple, and oak, proportioned to the room they will stand in.

Explore selected works
Kitchen with a cherry island set against hand-painted perimeter joinery

Kitchen, Bath & Built-In

Joinery drawn as architectural furniture and fitted to the ceiling heights, moldings, and light your house already has.

See the joinery
Hardwood aquarium stand beneath a lit reef tank

Aquarium Stands

Hardwood stands and canopies engineered, quietly, for the considerable load a filled tank puts on a floor.

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The Finish Library

Nineteen colors, four surface treatments.

Color is laid over a red historical ground, so the red reads through wherever the piece would honestly wear. Select a swatch to see it at size.

Timber & finishes
Pigeonhole compartments and dovetailed drawers inside a curly maple desk

At the Bench

The parts you only see when you open it.

Drawer sides are dovetailed by hand. Interiors carry the same timber and the same finish as the show face. It costs more and almost nobody remarks on it, which is close enough to a definition of doing the work properly.

  1. 01

    Selection

    Boards come off the rack and are sorted for grain and color, so the figure in one drawer front carries into the one beneath it. Nothing is cut to length until the piece has been laid out in the rough.

  2. 02

    Milling

    Stock is flattened, thicknessed, and brought to final dimension. Wood is a living material that moves with the season, so parts are milled close to the day they are joined.

  3. 03

    Joinery

    Mortise-and-tenon for the frames, hand-cut dovetails for drawers and chests. The joint carries the load, which is why drawers cut this way still run two centuries on.

  4. 04

    Assembly

    Dry-fitted first, then glued and drawn square in the clamps. Turnings and steam-bent parts are made here at the bench rather than bought in.

  5. 05

    Finishing

    Sanded through the grits, colored by hand, and topcoated in a dust-free room so nothing settles into the film. The finish is made to be lived on and touched up, not preserved under glass.

Our craft

Selected Works

Recently off the bench.

The full catalog
Continuous arm Windsor chair in black Continuous Arm Windsor Ash and poplar · black over red historical RB-8611 · Bench-built to order Comb-back Windsor arm chair in black Comb-Back Arm Chair Hand-carved seat · nine spindles LC-A · Bench-built to order Bow-back Windsor rocking chair Bow-Back Rocker Steam-bent bow · shaped rockers NE-BOW · Bench-built to order Bow-back Windsor side chair in natural cherry Bow-Back Side Chair Natural cherry · saddled seat RB-069 · Bench-built to order Windsor swivel bar stool with a saddled seat Swivel Bar Stool Sack-back form · saddled seat, swivel top RB-95.3-SW · Bench-built to order Writing arm Windsor chair with a paddle arm and drawer beneath Writing Arm Windsor Cherry · paddle arm over a fitted drawer RB-083 · Bench-built to order Fan-back Windsor side chair with a carved crest rail Fan-Back Side Chair Carved crest · splayed and turned legs RB-102 · Bench-built to order Stretcher-base dining table Stretcher-Base Table 36" × 72" · turned legs, box stretcher TB-3672 · Bench-built to order
“We commissioned the table for our first house and the chairs a few years after. Both have moved three times and raised two children. They look better now than the day they arrived.”
Sample testimonial · to be replaced with a client's own words

The Journal

Notes on timber, joinery, and finish.

All notes
Curly maple secretary desk in window light Materials

Choosing between cherry and curly maple

One deepens quietly for decades. The other is chosen board by board for a figure that never repeats. A note on how to decide between them before the first cut.

 Pigeonhole compartments inside a curly maple desk At the Bench

Why the dovetails are still cut by hand

A jig is faster and, on a drawer that will be opened forty thousand times, measurably weaker. What that difference looks like at the bench.

 Hand-painted mustard cupboard with pinstriped panels Finishes

What historical means on a finish card

Nineteen colors, four surface treatments, and a red ground that shows through at the wear points. A walk through the finish library.