We are all very excited here at JHE's Log Furniture Place to exclusively debut our new collection of log furniture. With this collection we decided our goal was to combine the best of the best while offering the collection at a competitive price. What we have ended up with is our
Cedar Lake collection, a line of
log furniture that will simply take your breath away when you lay your eyes on it.
The Unique Aged Cedar Logs
We started by locally sourcing the cedar logs from friends and associates. For the cedar logs we wanted as much character as possible so we found logs that were naturally aged. What we were able to find were a lot of dead standing cedar trees and cedar trees that had been cut down by farmers and stored in barns. There the trees were left to sit allowing nature herself to age the logs. The naturally aged cedar logs are thusly rich in character and many will feature beetle marks, burls, gnarls and other rustic character.
When the logs are brought to our factory we set out hand peeling the logs. Hand peeling is not a fancy name for a machine peeler of some sort. Literally we dig our fingers in under the bark separating the bark up off of the log enough to get a better grip in the hand and then the bark is peeled away. It is a very labor intensive and time consuming process, but the end result are amazingly beautiful logs that have their outer bark stripped away while having areas of cambium, or inner bark, left on. This hand peeling process ensures that the logs keep as much of their uniqueness as possible. The cambium also adds some color to the whitish hue that Northern White Cedar has.
After the hand peeling process the logs are brought in to the drying room, where a large wood burning furnace, or kiln, dries the logs. During this kiln drying process a good percent of the moisture that was left in the logs is removed. The escaping moisture is what creates the checking in the logs. More about checking can be read in our article here:
Checking and Cracking.
The Log Beds in the Cedar Lake Collection
The
log beds you will find in our Cedar Lake Collection are going to range from the classic log bed style to more unique styles. Select skilled builders, or log furniture artisan if you will, will carefully construct each and every
lodge bed.
Since all of the logs are vastly different the building process cannot be automated. The specialized builders will sort through the logs patiently and carefully while envisioning your
log bed in their mind’s eye. After they have found the complementing logs needed to create the rustic masterpiece they envision they will then lay the logs out and will start constructing your
cabin style bed by hand. Bends, beetle tracks, twigs, splits, forks, checking, arches, burls and knots – all of these natural markings on the logs come into consideration in the placement and construction of your log bed. The most unique markings are placed in the most visible areas when possible on your log bed ensuring that your rustic bed is a unique piece of art.
This process is repeated for each and every bed in our
Cedar Lake Collection, whether you choose the
Original Log Bed, the
Super Spindle Log Bed, the
Flat Top Spindle Log Bed, the Original Canopy Bed, the
Leaning Ladder Bunk Bed, the original Bunk Bed, headboards etc. etc.
The Log Chests, Rustic Dressers and Cabin Style Nightstands in the Cedar Lake Collection
We decided to create two lines of
rustic chests,
log dressers and
log nightstands in our Cedar Lake Collection. Both lines feature solid construction with smooth rolling drawers. Both lines are built to become your family’s rustic heirlooms. Both lines feature solid tops with a natural edge. Solid?! Yes, solid…
We looked around at a lot of the cedar furniture being sold, and found that the most popular and best selling rustic cedar furniture lines use plywood with veneer for the sides and the tops. The tops are typically a thinner piece of furniture grade plywood with a log edging to make it appear thick. These tops look great… but
rustic furniture to me should be real. It should be solid, it should be built to withstand lifetimes of use and abuse. So we decided to go with a real top, a thick and solid top that will last lifetimes. The tops feature natural edges on two sides. These natural edges are often wavy and add a lot of character to the furniture. The two non natural edges are hand draw knifed and can be lightly fired with a blow torch, if desired, to add even more color and unique character.
The Cedar Lake Logger line is a heavy, extremely rustic, naturally beautiful line. As you will soon see we built this line with no holds barred.
The
logger line features drawers with strong and durable full-extension drawer glides. Yes, I said full-extension. These smooth and silent roller bearing glides open effortlessly and allow you to pull the drawer open completely. We continued with the logger line and built half log drawer fronts – not the typical one log makes a drawer – no, we combined multiple logs to create uniquely beautiful drawer fronts. The drawers turned out so good that we decided to create the sides of the logger chests, dressers and nightstands with logs also. Now you can see why we called this line the logger line! For the drawer pulls we decided to use authentic drawer handles to accentuate the look of the log trim.
We stood back and were pleased and satisfied with the result of our logger collection. We then brought others in to get opinions and soon found that although everyone appreciated the unique look, not everyone would want a no-holds barred piece of rustic furniture in their home. Thus we created the second line of rustic case goods in our Cedar Lake collection.
The second line features the same thick and solid natural edge tops, the same solid construction, but we toned down the look by creating the sides of the
rustic dressers,
cabin style chests and
rustic night stands with tongue and groove. The tongue and groove sides give a cabin wall look. We then used our extremely rustic logs on the corners for legs and decided to offer the drawer fronts in a flat front style or a half log style. For the drawer slides we switched to smooth gliding euro-glides. Now everyone was happy and we could move on to designing dining room and living room furniture!
Log Dining Tables, Half Log Benches, and Comfortable Rustic Log Dining Chairs
With the
rustic dining room furniture we decided to start with the dining chairs. We figured what point is it to have a nice solid
log dining table if you don’t have a comfortable chair to sit in at it? We used this same thought in our outdoor log furniture collection - the
Contoured Comfort collection. Our
outdoor log furniture is known for comfort, for the ability to hug and curve the natural contours of your body. We were not going to stop until we had duplicated this sense of comfort in a rustic elegant dining chair.
Yes, we know a lot of companies are charging more for upgrading their dining chair to a comfortable log dining chair. I don’t like to nickel and dime our customers. You know what you want, why should you have to upgrade and upgrade just to get it? It should come standard in my opinion. So our
log dining chairs come standard with a comfortable seat. Not only a comfortable seat, I should also mention that we spent a lot of time on the comfort of the back as well. You can lean back in your chair and relax after eating your meal, or while trying to mask your face while holding pocket aces, all comfortably and naturally.
Now that we had the comfortable
log dining chairs it was time to create the center piece of the dining room, the dining table. A dining table top goes through a lot of abuse, unintentional or intentional a dining table top needs to be solid and durable.
Here again we found a lot of
cabin dining tables using a thin wood with veneer with a log edging to give the appearance of being thick. I’m sure these tables are fine for showpieces – for those with dining rooms that will only be used for the Holidays. But why not have a
rustic dining table that is not only an elegantly beautiful showpiece, but also a strong and durable
log dining table as well? Thus we drew design after design, constructed prototype after prototype, trying to hit that fine line of beauty and rustic.
What we ended up with, funnily enough, is the same style of top that we use on our rustic dressers and chests. The natural edge gives a natural beauty, like looking at a tree. The thick and solid top can take beatings from kids without worry. Any dents in the top will only add to the rustic look of the dining table without taking away from the rustic sophistication.
Cedar Lake Collection Log Sofas, Rustic Easy Chairs and Other Log Living Room furniture
The living room was quite a bit easier to design. We had learned our lesson with the dining tables and knew we could use the same tops for our
log coffee tables. We also wanted to add a second option of table styles in the living room though, so we gathered inspiration from our logger line of bedroom furniture. We took half logs and joined them together side by side creating a flat top and a unique log bottom.
Our rustic living room seating includes
log sofas,
log futons,
log easy chairs and
log love seats. We wanted to set our cabin style living room furniture apart from all the others. What we decided to do was to add to the classic rustic log style by adding leather capped arms. These softly padded arm pieces are added to the tops of the arms with nailhead trim, adding an elegant sophisticated look to your cabin furniture.
Comfort is, in my opinion, the most important feature in a piece of furniture. Especially living room furniture where one tends to sit the most. Thus we spent a great amount of time designing the seat cushion supports, finding the most comfortable angle of the back, and of course creating the most comfortable yet durable cushions. I'm quite pleased to say that though our
log living room furniture looks rustic... it seats luxuriously
