Timber-Framed Beauty

Dominating the culture and the landscape of the new world well into the 20^th Century, barns were centers of community, commerce and culture.  Like the lifestyle and era they represent they are quickly fading into history.  Neglect, Fire and the weather have claimed untold numbers of these beautiful buildings over the last 50 years. While some people will argue that it is the great churches and cathedrals or the vaunted skyscrapers and government buildings with their curtains of marble and glass that embody the North American Spirit I maintain it is the wooden barn.

For as long as man has kept animals and cultivated crops we have built barns to work and store them. In North America the barn has played a critical role since the first Europeans reached it shores.  Even when the Viking settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows was found dating back almost 500 years before Christopher Columbus’s birth was discovered the settlement centered on a pair of barns.

In my travels I occasionally come across a Mennonite Barn Raising.  If you have never seen one it gives a great perspective on just how massive an undertaking it was to raise a barn.   The framing of these massive buildings is impressive.  Huge beams tied together with wooden pegs and wedges hold together tons of wood against time and the elements.

At Kimberley Jackson we bring this craftsmanship into your home.  Our Timber-frame tables are built from Hand Hewn Beams and topped with two inch tops of solid wood. We build them with the attention to detail of barn raisers of old.

Our shop and store is filled with this history.   Look just below the surface of that beautiful furniture and you will see the majestic barn beneath.

Jack

A look back at some old friends

Work around the shop continues at a frenzied pace.  This afternoon discussion turned to how much things have changed around here. This past summer we made the move out of what was commonly referred to as the “Lean-to” on Highway 60 in Huntsville.

The roof leaked, the doors rattled, the floor was little more than barn board laid on a few risers on the ground.  In the summer it was a sweat box you went outside to cool down and prayed for a breeze. In the winter it was a freezer and not even I let alone the customers wanted to be in there for more than a few minutes at a time.

Currently we are in the planning stages for our new storefront in Huntsville attached to the shop.  I thought it might be fun to take a quick look back at some personal photos of pieces we had in our old store on Highway 60.

A Midboy Flanked by 2 Nitestands.
The Birdhouses were made from an old Sugar Shack right down to the used Maple Spigots.

A Two Door Lowboy with a gorgeous Dark Walnut top.
The Window was recovered from an old home and the flowers were hand painted by a local artist.

This Island has hand-turned legs and a two inch thick top.

This unit was built as one piece. Big Mistake weighed almost as much as a piano!

Thanks for stopping by.

Jack

The Shop and The Painter

What makes a successful shop?  Is it the tools?  The plans?  The Materials? A great building? All these things are important but the critical piece is the people.  In many businesses people, like machinery or materials are simply cogs on a wheel.  Not so in our shop. 

Is it the creativity, the work ethic, the attention to detail that makes the people the key element?  Hardly.  It is the personalities of the characters that make it a place that builds such beautiful things. 

In our shop we are an all male crew.  Not that this is in anyway essential to the running of the place but as you will see in my writings to come it’s a factor in the dynamic.  What happens when you set 6 guys loose in a shop filled with potential and enthusiasm?  Well I’ll tell you.  You get some work done (occasionally it seems), the jokes that the universe became tired of a millennium ago are still funny and the toilet paper never quite seems to make it on the roll.

I am not trying to make light of the guys I work with.  Our painter is 13 feet tall, ok... 6 foot 7 but anyone taller than me when sitting on a stool while I am standing is 13 feet tall to me. It seems that he has become the favourite target for the inside jokes in the shop going back as far as I can remember.  In a wood shop the painter’s life is a solitary one.  All alone with nothing but the sound of the compressor and the hiss of paint would be enough to send me screaming from the room.  Not him, kitted out in overalls, gloves, a mask and the recently ever present IPod , which I am sure has all of Barry Manilow’s greatest love songs on it, he cheerfully goes about his work without much in the way of fuss or comment.

Last year the hermit like nature of his work got the paint room temporarily renamed “The Cave”.  After sealing him in and posting signs for a week we had to call a stop to it because, it seemed, everyone had become as interested in the “project” as they called it as getting any work done.  Through the whole ordeal he smiled in his own shy way, cracked back an occasional comeback but mostly just shook his head at the absurdity of it all and carried on.  

When he went on vacation recently it came to me rather suddenly one day.  Though he never says much the shop seems quieter without him. I guess this is one piece that makes this shop a family.

When you are in the store looking at our furniture remember the 13 foot tall painter and I dare you not to get Barry Manilow stuck in your head.  Talk to you soon.

Jack

Welcome to our Blog!

 “It’s not about me.  It’s about the furniture, the people and the beautiful products we build.  It’s about the store.”  These are the words that will shape all that will follow in this blog.  It is inevitable that as I write that you will become more familiar with the cast of characters around the shop, in the store and some of our friends in the world at large.

It took me a while to really get it.  This business is about the places, people and things that inspire our designs and fuel our passions.  Most of all it’s about the furniture.

This is the story about what we make. Solid construction built to last.  At Kimberley Jackson we don’t hide the materials we use; we celebrate them.  The furniture is designed and finished to accent the nature of the wood, to preserve its beauty and character. We combine the best of timeless forms with modern conveniences and top them with “Wood With History”.

Much of what makes heirloom furniture designs so beautiful is simple. It’s classic.  Our customers love the look and feel of old lumber.  Whether it is from a 130 year old barn or a century home we find a place for it in our furniture.  A two inch thick slab of 100 year old pine sits on top of a buffet waiting to be sent to the store in Toronto in time for Christmas.  I like to think of it as preserving history; of bringing a piece of the past into someone’s home. 

At our shop here in Huntsville Ontario there is no assembly line. Instead it has the best features of a craftsman shop designed to meet the needs of a more hurried society; loyal to the values of true workmanship coupled with a modern flair for the functional. In our shop each piece gets its time in the spotlight tended to by a team of passionate professionals building furniture to last.

In this blog I will explore the things that have inspired us along the way and the people and places that still do.  I hope to share my passion for old buildings and furniture and introduce you to a few friends along the way.  Welcome to our Blog and I can’t wait to see you again

Jack