Luxury

My lovely wife, Erika, has been laying her clothes on the bathroom floor for the last few weeks. No, she hasn’t gone insane, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.

When we built our home eight years ago, we added a few “luxury” things, like a heated floor system in the master bath. We had some problems with the system initially, so we didn’t use it much until this year.

So, I got up this morning to 12 degree weather, snow and ice everywhere, and winds of 30mph. After taking a ridiculously hot shower – the kind that takes skin off, I hop out to slide into warm socks…and jeans…and shirt. There is very little in this world that is better than the feeling of being engulfed by warmth, especially on a morning like this one.

I felt bad having splurged on a heated floor and the electricity it consumes, until I remember that my lovely wife, Erika, has yet to turn on the heater this year! The wood stove is working overtime for sure. Tabby, our cat, really appreciates the heated floor too.

While it seems like an unnecessary cost, the actual cost of running the heated floor is about the same as leaving on a table lamp. This versus the cost of running a heating system in a house makes the heated floor seem like a good, not so luxurious, item to splurge on.

While many people consider our furniture a luxury, I never have. I consider it a good value. To me this means something that lasts, is appreciated often, and has more value for the purchaser than the cost of the item itself.

Luddites Anyone

I got into this debate with the twenty something, now officially thirty something, marketing director of ours (Hugs and kisses, Alison). Silly really, but it typifies this ongoing …well, let’s just call it a difference in the way we look at life. She was paying a bill through the company of hers with a fist full of cash. I was curious why she’d choose to use up all her cash rather than pay with a check or some other arrangements with the accounting people. Then it began. The obvious was pointed out…just go to the ATM. Duh! When I pointed out that I did not have an ATM card, and had less interest of getting an ATM card, and that I prefer to go inside the bank and hand my transactions to an actual person, with an actual pulse, I was accused of being a Luddite.

Curt, one of my partners, quickly tried to intervene, only to confess that he too shared my lack of a banking card, and preferred dealing with someone with a pulse rather than something that beeps and burps at you. He took the next barrage of scrutiny, only to slink off slightly bruised. Thanks for taking one for the team, Curt. Us Luddites got to stick together, don’t you know.

The other day we had an oops in the shop, and the solution was to shave the face of the entire cabinet back about ¼”. Not a difficult thing to do in theory, but to actually do it is very difficult. The only way to really do this was by hand...enter Kevin Parker, one of our craftsmen. Kevin has a real passion for hand planes, and all things in the craft that are old timey. So, Kevin was call upon, and he proudly marched over and whittled away on the face of this cabinet for an hour or so, successfully saving both the cabinet and hours of additional time.

Think about this for a minute. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment in our shop, and the best solution to this and many other problems was a $25 hand plane. Who’s the Luddite now, Miss marketing director smarty pants? I’ll bet this internet thing is just a passing fancy, too.

Why furniture?

It always so interesting to ask craftsmen how they decided to do what they do. The other day in our showroom, I met a man who makes guitars for a living (an honest to goodness luthier!). The story behind that choice must be just fascinating.

I've asked our craftsmen this question and they all have their own stories, like the craftsman who works for us who comes from a family of cabinetmakers.

I asked a similar question of Adam King, a furniture maker in Olney, Illinois, and he said the following:

It's that compulsion that drives me to strive for a closer connection to my materials and my heritage in this craft. It's that compulsion that has me exploring new ways to bring a very real emotional connection to you through my designs and my stories. It's that compulsion that's moving me in a direction that is honest and true to my passions and talents so that I can offer you the best work I could possibly create.

Go read the rest. It's worth it.