Albuquerque - Hanging Cabinet - Click Image to Purchase on Etsy

Albuquerque Cabinet Photo Gallery

Dimensions: 11 3/4″W x 7 3/4″ D x 30 1/2″ H
To Order: Purchase via Etsy or call 202.679.0066
Cost: $300
Delivery:  Immediate

A hanging cabinet just the right size for storing spices, compact discs or anything else you like.  After doing a commission for a physicist from New Mexico, I was left with images of Southwestern architecture stuck in my head.

I worked those images into this rocket-shaped cabinet with vaguely mission-esque styling.

The door and case are made of Quartersawn Ash, the door panel and accents are Padauk – that is it’s natural color, a deep red streaked with bits of brown, black and orange.

Can stand freely on a table or desk, or hang on a wall using the keyhole hangers installed on the back (see photos)

Click on Image to Learn More or Purchase at Etsy Gallery.

Monster Pup Photo Gallery

Dimensions: 22” W x 24 ¾” D x 24” H
To Order:  Purchase via Etsy or call 202.679.0066
Cost: $1975
Delivery:  Immediate,  free within 50 miles of Washington, DC

There may be more monsters, but this Pup is an original.

Apparently, before retiring to his new home in the Blue Ridge, the Dog of Monster Cabinet sired this handsome lad. While the identity of the mother remains a mystery, it is readily evident that she was part-Dalmatian, part-Cujo. Pup of Monster Cabinet is a fearsome yet oddly cute piece that can’t wait to sit patiently next to your favorite chair, one ear supporting your drink. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “ankle-biter”.

Mostly housebroken, guaranteed to stay off the couch.

Pup’s Pedigree

The third in the Monster Cabinet series, Pup of Monster Cabinet is a truly functional work of art. Not only does the mouth open to reveal cabinet space, but also the side opens to reveal more cabinet space.  Just look out for Pup’s “plumbing.”  The eyes are drawer pulls that reveal a spacious drawer.  The ears are actual drop-leaves that lock into place for additional table-top space.

Five - a Chest of Drawers. Click on the image to purchase online at Etsy.com.

Dimensions: 55” H x 21 ¾” W x 15” D
To Order:  Purchase online at Etsy or call 202.679.0066
Cost: $3,000
Delivery: Immediate, free within 50 miles of Washington, DC

Five Photo Gallery on Flickr

Five Drawer Chest of Drawers.
Wood Is Art.
A selection from the Slab and Box Series.

The extraordinary piece of Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) crotch came from a small operation in Webster City, Iowa. The case wood is Black Cherry (Prunus serotina ) with a Wild Apple (Malus spp.) back from the Coldwell Family in Salineville, Ohio. The Cherry drawer stock was cut and milled by a man in Bryant Pond, Maine. The drawer bottoms are flat cut amber Plyboo bamboo plywood. Finished with a Tung oil/varnish mix.

Photo Gallery of Local, Sustainable 3-Panel Chest

Cedar Lined 3-Panel Chest made from Local and Sustainable Wood Sources.

Dimensions: 37” W x 25” H x 21” D
To Order: Call 202.679.0066 or  email
Cost: $1,200 (estimate)
Delivery: 8-12 Weeks

Cost and Delivery will vary depending on wood choices.

Cedar-lined Chest, with a Walnut top and base, Cherry framing, and Apple panels.

One of the primary requirements was that the materials be from local and/or regional sources.

The Walnut came from Treeincarnations via Community Forklift and Amicus Green. Treeincarnations harvests wood from Washington, DC and it’s suburbs.

The Apple panels came from The Coldwell Family Tree Farm in Salineville, Ohio and from Smith Lumber of Central Pennsylvania.

The Quartersawn Cherry comes from South Central Pennsylvania; it has been recycled from an uncompleted project started in 1998.

(Really it’s an Eight-panel chest, I just call it a three panel because of what you see when viewing the front.)

Vaso Console, Click image to custom order through Etsy Gallery

To Order: Call 202.679.0066
Cost: $3,000 (as shown)
Delivery:  10-12 Weeks
Dimensions: 52″ W x 17″D x 28″H

This credenza-style console is perfect to showcase your collections and hide your clutter. It is framed on either side by large wide shelves for your collections and the large cabinet area helps keep clutter to a minimum.

Shown in dyed cherry with beveled glass insert and brushed nickel legs. May be ordered in wood of your choice and with or without the glass insert.

Signature Three Panel Chest - Click to Custom Order via Etsy or call 202.679.0066

Three Panel Chest Gallery

Dimensions: 37″ W x 17 ½” D x 25″ H
To Order: Call 202.679.0066
Cost: $1,200
Delivery: 8-12 Weeks

One of the most requested pieces of furniture is the chest. Some call it a hope chest, some call it a blanket chest, some want one for toys (although this one has the wrong hinges for that use), and others just want a bit of extra storage, no matter what it is called.

Personally, I have used chests for many things (books, heirlooms, wine, holiday decorations, little sisters), but, oddly, never for blankets or clothing.

In settling on a design for the original chest, I actually started with the lid. I had two sizable planks of my “guilt-free” Walnut left; what better place to show them off? When I say “guilt-free” I mean that they came from a tree that was cut down after it had died. Not a casualty of clear-cutting or a victim of rain forest poachers, it was felled by a sawyer in Fauquier County who had noticed its passing and decided to make the most of it.

The same sawyer sold me some nice, thick Walnut from a farm in Loudon County that I put in the base and some Sassafras from Pennsylvania that became the frame. The Padauk panels found their way here from Africa.

Each chest is unique and can be built to your unique specifications.  The sizes always vary a little and woods can be customized to your own personal style.  The photo gallery (top of page) shows another custom chest made from Cedar Lined, with a Walnut top and base, Cherry framing, and Apple panels.    One of the primary requirements of that commission was that the materials be from local and/or regional sources.

Lux Prunus Corner Cabinet, click for more images.

Lux Prunus Photo Gallery

Dimensions: 39 “W x 23″D x 24 ” H
To Order: Call us at 202.679.0066
Cost: $950
Delivery: Immediate and free within 50 Miles of Washington, DC

I have found that one of the most enjoyable aspects of design is the ability to take one form and modify it.  To change things just enough that the new version is distinct, yet still reveals its lineage; the alteration will ideally show an artistic evolution or maturation.  This version is made from solid cherry with a distressed finish and brushed nickel hardware

This piece is a scaled-down version of a recently commissioned corner cabinet. That commission was itself a morph of a sideboard which I had completed earlier in the year.

Seven Photo Gallery

The original Seven

Dimensions: 62″ H x 21 1/2″ W x 19″ D (overall)
To Order: Custom Inquiries Welcome
Delivery: 12-14 weeks,  free delivery within 50 miles of Washington, DC

A seven drawer chest-of-drawers or lingerie chest.  Front slab and carcass are made of Black Walnut from Loudoun and Fauquier counties, Virginia and has a great story.

The back is Adirondack Yellow Birch framed with Cherry, finished with Sutherland Welles Hard Sealer and Hard Oil. The drawers are Maple finished with Garnet Shellac.

The front of this piece was sliced from a Walnut tree which formerly shaded a barn near Middleburg, Virginia.

The barn owner replaced the barn’s rotted wooden roof with a tin one. That fall the trees began to shed their bounty; every time a nut hit that roof, it sounded like a gunshot. Hundreds of gunshots, day and night, at random times for weeks on end.

The trees had to go.

The extra wide boards that make up the case were almost blown away by a tornado, but that’s another story….

A commissioned piece, Six Fifty-four is a set of shelves made of Paulownia and Osage Orange.

Six Fifty Four Photo Gallery

Dimensions: 72″ W x 22″ D x 84″H
One of a Kind:  Commissioned Piece

The Paulownia, a widely-distributed non-native tree, was growing in the backyard of a Capitol Hill (DC) property owned by the client.  When he took the tree down, he saved the rather substantial trunk, allowing it to air-dry in a sheltered location for a few months.

Early in 2008, he took the log to the Hungerford Brother Sawmill near Germantown, Maryland.  Remus Hungerford sliced the log into 6/4 and 8/4 slabs which the client then took home and stacked in the Horse walk (a narrow. covered alley) of the house from which the log had come.  About a year after cutting it, he figured out what to do with it. Sort of.  He knew he wanted shelves for his new home, but was unclear on the configuration. The bottom one needed to be low and wide, so that it could double as a bench; this also meant that the second shelf had to be 40-50′ above the second.  We decided that a third shelf was needed, but that a fourth might be impractical.

Jamal, the client, has had a long-standing appreciation of Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera), a wonderfully dense, rot-resistant, deeply colored, and resilient wood. He has been spending much time on a friend’s Southern New Jersey farm recently.  The farm is peppered with rows of old Osage Orange trees; there have been widely planted as wind-breaks and hedges.  Jamal took a few of the larger branches home and began to wonder if i could incorporate them into the shelving somehow. Since I had just finished the Arm-Chair, Singular, this had an immediate appeal.

The Paulownia worked relatively easily; it is light and mostly straight grained. I had to be careful around the knots, and the wood dents easily, but it was quickly shaped. With the Osage Orange I used the same organic approach I use on the split-rail chairs. I knocked off most of the bark, then shaped the branches with drawknife and spokeshave before hitting the rough spots with a small belt sander (he has two girls, and I wanted to make sure that there was no chance of splinters).  In some places I took the wood down to it’s rusty orange heart, in others I left some of the gray, weathered surface;  I wanted and loved the variety. My favorite spots were where black cracks ran through fully finished areas, and where I left some of the moss on.