What is Heirloom Furniture?
There’s a saying I use all the time: “It’s simple, but it’s not easy.” Ask my wife and she’ll tell you it’s one of my favorites. Here’s an example. How do you walk across a 100-foot tightrope? Simple, put one foot in front of the other until you’re at the end.
Simple, but not easy. There are so many variables. How high is it? Are you tied to a harness or free walking? Wearing shoes or barefoot? What is the rope made of and how springy is it? You get my point. The same thing applies to furniture. So what is heirloom furniture?
It’s furniture that outlives its maker.
Not Easy Part 1: Building Furniture That Lasts
Here’s the “not easy” part. Making something that high-quality is tough. It needs solid, high-quality hardwood, bomb-proof joinery and finishes that are sturdy but flexible (wood moves with the seasons after all), and also repairable (things break! even well-made things!).
It requires practice and diligence with the myriad of woodworking tools and techniques.
It’s easy to slap something together with home center dimensional lumber, a few screws and some chemical-laden stain. All from the same store, and each item only a few aisles apart. What a bargain!
What’s difficult is to build something truly long-lasting. In our modern world of buy one get one free, same-day delivery and ubiquitous plastic junk, heirloom stands out. It stands out because of quality. But it also stands out because of price. Heirloom-quality furniture isn’t cheap. But it’s built to last, or as I like to say, “built to outlast.”
Heirloom quality means crafted with care, designed to last 100 years but also move the way wood does. Because if you didn’t know, wood continues to expand and contract even after it dries (crazy, right?). Designing furniture that can survive a century of use while still accommodating wood movement is no mean feat.
Not Easy Part 2: Furniture That Outlives Its Maker
When I think heirloom furniture, I also think of antique furniture. The stuff from 100, 200 or 300 years ago that’s still around. Obviously buying an heirloom-quality piece now means it won’t look like an antique. But one day it will.
A maker that crafts heirloom furniture has to confront their own mortality. When a piece leaves my shop, I look at it and think, “This thing will be around long after I am dead and gone.” But that’s not a sad thought. Quite the opposite. Because I get to build something functional, beautiful, and lasting that will serve a family I may never meet.
Not Easy Part 3: Living With an Heirloom
This is the last part. The first two parts are for the maker, but this last part is for the buyer. Buying heirloom furniture isn’t like buying cheap particle-board furniture you can throw out when you’re tired of it. You could get rid of your heirloom furniture when you’re tired of it. But you could also keep it around. It can age with you.
That quilt from your grandmother can stay safe in your blanket chest until you hand it down to your grandchildren. Your kitchen table could be host to decades of tears and laughter over thousands of shared meals. A well-built desk could be the surface that supports you for your entire career. This bookcase could house a lifetime’s worth of beloved and exciting stories.
What sets Copperhead Woodworks apart is the belief that furniture should matter. Not just today, but decades from now. Or a century from now. Every piece that leaves my shop is built with the hope that someone will find it useful, beautiful, and worth keeping.
So what is heirloom furniture? It’s part of what Theodore Roosevelt called the “strenuous life” and building it is what Teddy calls the best prize in life: the chance to work hard at work worth doing.