The Art of Furniture

We love to hear it when people love our furniture (I mean, who doesn't like the occasional pat on the back?) Yes, it tells us we're doing a good job, but it also lets our customers know that we have built a piece that was meant to last. Recently, we have received calls and e-mails from multiple different customers who purchased a Charleston Forge product 20 years ago and want a couple more. They had looked at replacing them with brand new product, simply so they would have matching pieces, but the quality and durability just didn't match what they had grown to love. So, our team custom makes a piece or two to match their current barstool, or table. 

However, this story really kind of tops them all. Our marketing director had a chance to speak with a husband and wife who had first hand experience with the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina:

Despite being raised 13 feet off the ground, the first floor of Kay and Chris Harris’ home in Pascagoula, MS found itself under 4 feet of water for days after Hurricane Katrina’s hit the southern US in 2005. Only half a block from the Gulf of Mexico, the Harris’ home had in fact faired far better than many of the homes around it – homes that weren’t raised up on concrete piles.

“They were gone,” Chris said during a visit he and his wife, Kay, made to the Charleston Forge factory in Boone, NC recently.

“The house was severely damaged,” Kay told company co-owner, Susan Barber. “Everything downstairs was destroyed except for your tables and an antique dining table that had been recently rebuilt.”

Despite sitting in salt water for days Chris said that the steel table bases needed only a light sanding and touching up with paint.

“The wooden tops were fine,” added Kay. At the time they owned four pieces of Charleston Forge furniture — two end tables, a sofa table, and a coffee table.

The Harris’, who no longer own the Pascagoula house, now split their time between homes on Beech Mountain, near Boone, and their home in Chocowinity, NC near the Atlantic coast. The furniture is now part of the décor at the Beech Mountain property.

“It’s lasting furniture,” said Chris.

Peppers Restaurant and Bar is a local staple for many in the Boone, NC area, serving up delicious sandwiches, a fresh crisp salad bar and homemade cookin’. When outfitting the bar area, the owner, Jack Pepper wanted to use Charleston Forge furniture for its durable nature and the fact that all of our work is handmade in America.  Charleston Forge was commissioned to create a unified look among the bar stools, tables and chairs, while providing a comfortable seat for their patrons.

“Our stools aren’t just made for sitting pretty, they’re made to be used, and used, and used.” Art Barber