Some American made, less sustainable in Tupelo

It was really good to see there there continues to be a good bit of mississippi made upholstery in what is / or used to be the Upholstery Capital of the world.  Of course, there were plenty of imports.  But the Mississippi and other US manufacturers continue to have a fairly good presence at this show.

Also as expected, I didn't find much in the sustainable area.  (Note:  I didn't do market research, just walked the 6 huge buildings with my eyes open).  One wonderful exception was at the Shaw Living space.  These guys seem to have been working at recycling for years.  And now all Shaw Living rugs are recycleable at their Evergreen Nylon Recycling facility in Augusta, Ga.  I look forward to learning more about Shaw's sustainable efforts.  Maybe I can even get a tour of their recycling facility next time I'm in the Atlanta area.  (This pic is of the knowledgeable and helpful Shaw reps at the Tupelo Show - standing in front of one of their recycleable Tommy Bahama Rugs).

barge heading to pickwick lock

While traveling on the Natchez Trace Parkway yesterday, I caught this pic of a barge heading to pickwick lock and then who knows.

natchez trace parkway to tupelo

I'm constantly looking for excuses to take the lovely Natchez Trace Parkway.  And the semi-annual Tupelo Furniture show was plenty good enough an excuse for me.  Even with the winter's leafless trunks, it was a wonderful drive.  Almost therapeutic.

Finishing Fridays

Each Friday we try to save at least half a day for finishing.  This allows the first coat of our tung oil blend to set up nicely before applying the additional coats on the following Monday.  Here we have quite a mix of seating and tables, walnut and oak, live edges and straight.  Hoping to get the camera out next week so I can share pics of these new products.  Finishing Fridays.

walnut and cherry slabs back from the kiln

I took this pic this morning of these walnut and cherry slabs that just came back from the kiln.  It's for our February issue of the monoLOG our monthly email newsletter.  If you haven't already, you can sign up for it from our home page.

These 3" and 4" thick walnut and cherry slabs air dried for three and four years before they were ready for the kiln.  It's always a celebration when the truck arrives from the kiln, never know exactly what's inside the rough package.

If you need a custom piece from one of these walnut or cherry slabs, you can see that we might just have a couple available.

Another informative sustainable webinar yesterday

Uh oh.  I'm already behind on one of this year's few resolutions.  It's been over a week since my last blog post! 

Yesterday, again at 1pm was another very informative GreenLeaders class on sustainability, given by the Sustainable Furnishings Council.  This session was on "sourcing green products".  Wonderful information that buyers need to know about thoughtful purchasing of furniture products and various issues related to each.  A few of the topics were: 

Certified wood, plantation grown wood, rapid renewables, recycled content, VOC finishes, Bio cushioning, leather tanning as well as shipping and deforestation concerns and organic textiles.

It is quite interesting that in leather (very much like in purchasing wood) purchasing a locally sourced product resolves several of the primary issues/problems associated with it.  That is, with the BIG exception of the tanning process that's still a big concern.  Bottom line, if you are going to purchase leather, try to make it US leather, rather than the common (and cheap but with MASSIVE issues) Brazilian leather.

Green leaders sustainability webinar

Three minutes until my second (of 6) weekly monday 1pm central webinar training classes given by the Sustainabie Furnishings Council.  Last Monday was my first session.  Jeff Hiller really knows his stuff.  If you are interested in Sustainability in Furniture or furnishings, this course is a must.  They'll be doing it in a one day (all day) session at the next High Point Market in April.  Starting now, gotta go.

Dale Chihuly Exhibit, Las Vegas

The Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Belagio was amazing.  Now I'm going to have to get up to Nashville to see his outdoor exhibit up there.  Here are some pics:

Las Vegas Weather and sun therapy

I think it's taken 30 years of visiting Las Vegas to overlook the obvious negatives and "see the trees" - well there aren't many.  The weather in Las Vegas is amazing.  To have 65 degree days in the middle of January with brilliant blue skies every day makes up for lots.  After spending each morning inside the World Market Center, I had to get outside in the afternoons.  And three days I spend an hour or two each by three of the nicest pools I've seen in a while.  My top pic is the ultra hip Cosmopolitan and the Cosmopolitan pool (top pic).  It was really no contest, but had it been a draw, the poolside ping pong tables would have sinched the deal.  But, just talking Hotel, the Mandarin is the place.  If I can afford it, that's where we'll be staying.  But then again, $39 at Balleys (connected to Paris) is going to be hard to beat.

Christopher Guy in Las Vegas

I took several pics in Vegas, and I'm trying to get caught up and blog a couple more of them today, before it's even older news than it is now (a week later).  So designer Christopher Guy was the headline speaker at this Winter's World Market event.  I happened to walk by, saw the crowd and slide show going with standing room only, so I snuck in and stood for that remaining 20 minutes or so of his presentation.  I think I must have been the only one in the room that didn't know his work intimately.  But then again, I kinda just do my own thing down here.  But, I did leave the presentation quite impressed.  He has kindof a British accent, but lives in Singapore.  He showed a slide of his studio overlooking that very cool, quite new building (in Singapore) - well seems like it's three very tall skyscrapers, with a rooftop oval deck placed over all three.  I've seen this over the top architecture somewhere recently while it was under construction, but obviously it's now completed.  Quite impressive.  Oh gosh, my ADD kicked in and I've taken you right out of Christophers studio, into a building that I'm not sure he had anything to do with.  Sorry about that. 

Oh, one more interesting thing.  At the last High Point Market, we were setting up the day before the show in the A&DC building, and there was a crowd around the computer in the entry.  They were playing some kind of marketing video of Christopher Guy (company).  Very cool, black and white, had a bunch of good looking models, running around hall ways, in and out of rooms, but the really weird part, was near the end they lead a horse!? out of a room, thru the hall.  Really interesting video.  He's gotta have some pro directing this thing.

Ok now, back to the Christopher Guy talk.  Interesting, Enjoyable, Seemed to be a nice guy.  I guess that's it.  If you know more about Christopher Guy, (and I'm pretty sure all you designers do, please share.

Cique de Soleil, Love, Beatles & Las Vegas

For Vegas to be so far down on my list of places to visit (or visit again), it can be tons of fun.  This Cirque de Solel Beatles show was - well - mind blowing.  My best analogy might be an amazing acid trip - or dream.  Obviously the Beatles had it going.  And the combination of Cirque and the cool '60's Beatles vibe was awesome (can't really come up with the word here).  Cirque's creativity - off the charts.  They seem to have smashed to pieces music, dance, circus, and the human spirit, blended it all up, and have come up with what has to be the best show I've experienced.  I was hoping to get a little video from my Iphone, but they were serious about now pics, with security all around.  The pic to the left is of the Beatles' Revolution Bar, just outside the Cirque stage - also very cool.  This show alone is more than enough justification to visit Las Vegas again.  And, that's quite something for a guy that has spent decades despising places like Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Market

The semi annual Las Vegas (Furnishings) Market was last week.  Although I've been to Vegas several times through the years, this was my first peek at their Market. 

To begin with, let me say that I started out with a couple of fairly strong biases.  First of all, I absolutely love High Point (the city) and neighboring Greensboro, High Point (the Market), and Las Vegas has never been anything but a place to exhibit or attend seminars, conferences.  I've never just flown to Vegas for fun, and would be surprised if I ever do.  I don't gamble.  Don't drink anymore.  But surprisingly, there is a good bit even for me to like in Vegas (following blog posts if I can get to them).

The World Market Center is quite impressive.  Three nice new modern buildings, each 10 to 20 (I think??) floors.  And I really like the quite cool, very modern archetecture and general design.  Nice courtyard between the three buildings, and if it ever rained in Vegas (does it??) there are walkways between the buildings.

This World Market Center was conceived, designed and built during the national construction boom.  There were planned several additional buildings, planned for this development, that, at some future date, when things turn around (no time soon is my guess) they could complete the project.

I've always been one that likes to know my options.  And this was the reason for this trip.  Just to scout it out, and see if it's a viable alternative for us to High Point.  My general conclusion - not now, but I won't say never.  The Vegas Market didn't "seem" to have the number of buyers walking the show as High Point.  And, talking with exhibitors, most of the buyers weren't "serious".  Many of them arrived with a priority for the show, but it didn't seem to be furniture.  More in the gambling, gaming, other types of entertainment, perhaps. 

There certainly was a higher percentage of buyers  from the west coast.  Which, at some future date, might be a market that we want to/have the capacity to market to.  But for now, I couldn't be more thrilled with the High Point Market. 

I've got a few pics I'll try to post over the weekend.

One less negative to living in this small southern town.

Living in this wonderful relatively small town certainly has very powerful advantages and disadvantages.  Some we are clearly aware of almost on a daily basis, and others we may not be.  Linda and I could live almost anywhere at this point in our life.  We love to travel, but we really love living right here.  I'll be talking about the many reasons we are so happy living right where we are in future blogs.  But for now, I'm going to move into an area that I typically have a short fuse for;  negativity, the problems with living in a small town.

I've got to get back to work in a minute, so I'll just touch on the ones that come to mind:

1)  diversity.  To me, this is probably the biggest negative.  Diversity of, well everything.  Cultures, ideas, vantage points, food, colors, accents, design, architecture, music, art, entertainment.  Well, with awareness and inexpensive flights these days, this too can be compensated for.  Really appreciating and savoring the few diverse exchanges that do arise right here.  I recently had this conversation with a customer from Santa Cruz, who didn't seem to believe that they had possibly any more true diversity than we might.  Maybe more cultures, etc, but there didn't seem to be much of a mix.  (I'm guessing she's wrong, but really hard to say).

Ok, looking like most of the rest of my negatives of living in a small town seem to relate to #1.

Food.  Almost everything food related - we are short on;Decent grocery stores.  Decent restaurants.  Cooking stores.  Cooking classes.

2)  Lets start with restaurants.  Often I come to the conclusion that my Buddhist friends are right in many ways.  If you look deep enough, maybe there is no wrong or bad.  Very few good restaurants in the area has made Linda a great cook.  And, it's certainly inspired us, when we travel, to get off the beaten path, to plan each meal that we can, and enjoy (and hopefully learn from) each wonderful smell, taste and every morsel.

3)  Decent grocery stores.  It has seemed absolutely ridiculous that we have never had a good grocery store in this city of almost 40,000 and combined population of 100,000 of the quad cities.  A few years ago Aldi arrived, just in time for many of us.  Although many here don't like Aldi, don't want to loan the a quarter for the cart, don't want to bring there own green bag in or pay a nickel for a bag, and say they don't like the off brands.  But many of us have come to cherish Aldi.  Really good produce, and cheap!  But it's not gorgeous, lined up, and shined like a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, or Fresh Market, Super Target, or our recent favorite Earth Fare.  But none of these compare (to me) to the local farmer's markets - with really local produce - ah - looking forward to Spring.

Ok, now for the reason for this blog post.  Linda was almost in tears this morning when she brought in the paper.  The front page of the local paper - 55,000 square foot Publix to be built on the Books-A-Million site (another big favorite of ours).  Ok, the city commission will not ether confirm or deny this, but we are already counting on it. 

This is big.  Just not having a good grocery store has sent many friends of ours packing.  Ok, let me think, what will be our first purchases when they open:

1)  an olive and artichoke mix from the olive bar

2)  bread (oh, did I say that we don't even have a bakery here!).  Fresh french baguette, heavy crusty whole grain bread, Real sour dough.  Except for corn bread, the southern versions of breads generally don't compare.

3)  Sushi to go.  Although I'm sure I will generally continue to get my sushi from our absolute fav, the Rice Box in North Florence.

4)  Gourmet Deli.  Ok, it's 9:40 and I've worked myself up into a big hunger.  Back to our Buddhist friend's thoughts.  Perhaps this Publix isn't such a good idea.  Maybe Publix and a gym membership will be the trick.  Maybe I should like the city council "confirm or deny" this before I get too excited.

Steve Jobs steps down

What a great ride it's been for those of us who have benefitted from Steve's creative genius for the past quarter of a century.  Thank you Steve.  Get well, and let's get back to business.

celebrating martin luther king today in alabama

I've been thinking about and celebrating all of Martin Luther King's accomplishments today.  I know we live in a better place thanks to him.  We've made so much progress since I was a kid.  But I think he would agree that there's more work to be done.

soon to be walnut furniture

soon to be walnut furniture

These mostly walnut slabs are getting closer to becoming walnut furniture.  They have another year or so of air drying, before the go into the kiln for a month.  Then they'll be (and I'll be) ready to start designing and making walnut furniture.  See more walnut furniture here.

walnut dining table on display

This walnut dining table is still on display at the Florence Public Library.  It was made from scraps that we accumulated from time to time.  Twice a year or so we have enough scraps two build a few tables.  The whiter color is the sapwood of the walnut tree.  See more walnut dining tables here.

walnut timber bench

walnut timber bench

More pics from the photo shoot last week.  We made this walnut timber bench back in November.  Another really simple design.  Just notched out a couple of spots for the little fat legs and bolted them in.  You won't see many pieces this massive from us.  The four year's of air drying time before it went in the kiln takes more slow patience than even we have here in North Alabama.  See more benches here.

solid walnut console

Solid Walnut Console

Solid Walnut Console

We completed this solid walnut console last week as well.  This walnut bulging slab has great lines - well curves.  And, what do you know??  Another dimensional joint on the legs.  We needed a way to stabilize the the pair of long legs of this solid walnut console table.  And I think the little dimensional joint suits it just right.  Just click here if you'd like to see more walnut console tables

walnut desk

I finally got around to taking some pics of this solid walnut desk last week.  The top is made from two natural edge walnut slabs.  I'll try to get more pics this week to show a new use of my dimensional joint - on the table leg.  This walnut desk has three legs. And, like most of the furniture we make around here, is heavy.