The Art of Furniture

One thing about our style here at Charleston Forge is that we create very classic, beautiful, "will-work-in-most-any-setting" furniture.  Our furniture has been loved by designers and customers alike for a long time for that reason... along with the fact that it is built to last and wont fall apart after 2-3 years of use. It's sturdy, and it's made in America at our Boone, NC plant (a huge positive selling point right now!) 

However, since we do so much custom designed furniture to fit the needs of our clients, we will, on occasion, get a not so run of the mill request. A table base painted in a bright teal or a barstool cushion lined in a vibrant red zebra stripe. We create these pieces on an individual bases for our customers, or for a designer who has a color scheme in mind and just can't find anything else to fit their vision. Recently, the flash sales site Rue La La has, for a three-day period, featured a fairly non-traditional color palate and asked contributors such as Charleston Forge to provide pieces around that color scheme. With spring on the way, with all its bright colors and vibrant hues, Rue La La has requested purple. We obliged. 

Today is the last day of their purple sale. Be sure to go by and take a look to satiate your purple craving.

Have you heard about Rue La La yet? Rue La La is an awesome site dedicated to all things shopping. Items range from children's clothing and accessories, to name brand design, purses, shoes, clothing, and even furniture (of course they carry furniture... and OUR furniture too.) These limited number items all sell for spectacular deals and come with a time limit. Once the sale is over, its over. 

Rue La La holds events, today they are having the "Orange Event." Starting at 11am, all things orange are featured and at incredible prices. Charleston Forge has three drink tables featured on the front page of the event. 

If you dont have an account, be sure to head on over and create one... its a shoppers paradise. 

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

So many furniture manufacturers are located in areas of the country like Upstate New York, and Hickory or High Point, NC (the furniture capital of the world,) yet we are one of the few who are not. Instead we call the mountains of NC home.  The area is the home of magnificent views, such as those from Grandfather Mountain, and the often-photographed Linn Cove Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Home to all kinds of artisans and craftspeople, some of whom focus on tiny details when creating lovely jewelry; while others follow family traditions when building delightful handcrafted mirrors or hand wrapped traditional wedding brooms.

Boone, Blowing Rock, and the surrounding areas are steeped in history and beauty. The winters bring fluffy white snow (often just in time for the Holidays,) decorating the mountains and valleys in a white silence. The spring and summers are lush and green, full of life with beautiful light streaming through the trees, the temperature rarely rising above a comfortable 78 degrees; and the area during the fall is one of the most spectacular places in the country to see the changing of the leaves. Bright oranges, yellows and reds stretch for miles, creating a splendid golden hue, especially during the hours of sunrise and sunset, where one can just bathe in the warmth of the golden light, while cuddling up to a loved one with a favorite oversized sweater and cup of rich hot chocolate, warding off the crisp cool nip in the fall air.

Quaint little downtown areas welcome shoppers and diners, the stores catering to a wide array of visitors, yet very few sell by corporate names or product.  During a weekend visit to the area, a shopper can pick up a cute little metal knickknack creature, with charming buggy eyes, sweetly named “doodlebug” (a fond childhood nickname) as a gift for their mother, or a scenic canvas by a local artist whose talent recorded the splendor that is the area. They can dine at a restaurant whose menu changes day to day, only serving gourmet dishes made from local seasonal items, and then attend a winery for a “grown in the High Country” wine tasting. They can take a day hike to a beautiful waterfall, or an afternoon drive armed with a picnic basket filled with delicious local meats, cheeses, wine, and skillfully hand decorated, made from scratch cupcakes.  They can ride on horseback and tour the trails and mountains, and during the warm summer evenings, catch a show by a community theater production.

While Boone and the High Country does not have the amount of steel, concrete, shopping malls and name brands that cities like New York, Atlanta, Dallas or even Charlotte does, it does not lack in culture or beauty. There is far less traffic and far more nature, far fewer crowds and far more distinct seasons.  The area cradles our craft, our design and our people, nurturing its growth while reminding each of us to enjoy the beauty set out in front of us, rich and radiant.  We’ve never found a place we’d be happier to call home.

Tara Jackson          

We would love to hear back from our readers. Feel free to post a comment or feedback below.

Handmade. We tell our customer and our partners that we are “Handmade… American Made.” It’s our motto, it’s on our business cards, it’s on our website and we constantly refer to it through facebook and our blog. We use the terms as if they mean something, as if they were important…. an ideal to live by. But in a world full of “Made in China,” “send the work over seas so we can make more money here at home” and cookie cutter repeats, we wonder if our consumers truly understand what we mean.

Back in October, our CEO shared a story that he received in an email with a photo of a ship containing 15,000 tractor-trailer loads of product from Asia. The Journey took just 4 days and the ship was emptied so that the product could be sent straight to companies who get their product quickly and cheaply, just to increase the price for something that you will walk in to your neighbor's house next week finding the exact same item.  And while this seems to be the norm, the fact is that the cost to produce and ship product from China is on the rise, while much of the quality remains the same.

And for a dose of happy news, published in an article by Florida Today (www.Floridatoday.com), 2012 is a year where more people are looking for furniture specifically with the label “Made in the USA.” According to the article, “The demand for American-made products has created record prices for American antiques at auction houses.” And apparently, this trend is expected to influence many of the furniture manufacturers and all of the industry in one way or another (which is great to hear after so many companies followed the trend after 9/11 of sending much of their furniture manufacturing over seas. And all this during a time when total patriotism was shouted from the rooftops.)

So to us, “Handmade… American Made” is a phrase we couldn’t be more proud to use or to live by.  Our people put their hearts into their work, from concept and design, to spending time by the hot forge twisting a chair leg into a glorious swirl, to meticulously painting a side table in a bright peacock teal as per a custom request. When it’s custom made, you can bet your neighbors won’t have the same barstools to entertain by. Your boss won’t have the same bench in his office that your kids sit on to tie their shoes in the morning. And your four-poster specially designed bed for your newly remodeled master suite will be special to you, and you alone.

And not only will it be unique, but it will also last for years and years. It won’t be put together with brittle plastic clips that refuse to hold the weight of your favorite book collection, nor will your favorite bar stool shatter into pieces when an excited brother-in-law knocks it over while tripping over his feet trying to get to your home made dessert (which he swears is better than any “from the box” mix you can buy.)

Handmade still means something. American made still means something. Quality.

                       Tara Jackson