Organic Food & American Furniture Manufacturing

At Manchester Wood we stand behind 3 Principles – Value, Honesty, and Community – and today we celebrate those three core ingredients in our family-operated business by announcing a partnership with another like-minded family-run business in quality and value, the Kilpatrick Family Farm.

Although we are an American furniture manufacturer by trade, this partnership is outside the activities taking place inside the mill, and instead applies to 10 of the surrounding 23-acres we inhabit, here, in the Adirondack foothills of upstate New York. We have plenty of land, most of which in the past has been rented out to farmers for corn. But we’ve decided this year to instead have the local organic Kilpatrick Family Farm transform it into organic soil. They will work the fields to grow and raise all sorts of organic produce on our behalf. As a furniture manufacturer and soon-to-be organic food provider for our employees, we more deeply align with our eco-friendly, eco-conscious solid wood furniture efforts; which hold a valued direction in how we manufacture our furniture made in the USA.

To learn more about the Kilpatrick Family Farm, CSA Farming (like this), as well as all the other benefits of organic farming and its process visit their site: kilpatrickfamilyfarm.com

The Price for Solid Wood Furniture

Luke Eriksen here, I’m a grandson of Manchester Wood’s founder Cliff Pierce, and the 3^rd generation at work at the mill. I had a moment I wanted to share with you… I was taking photos this morning for an instruction manual on a new solid wood bookshelf. It’s a very basic piece of furniture. It has a bottom shelf, a top shelf, and a middle adjustable shelf. We had just pitched it to a strong wholesale client of ours and they felt it was out of their price range. And I got thinking… here is a basic, simple, beautiful piece of handcrafted wood furniture, and I know we’re not asking too much for it – we’re really just covering our bases in expense here – but the question swirled “why can’t it be cheaper?” Then I quickly realized, yet again, ‘it’s solid wood!’ I often forget the quality of solid wood furniture when discussing Manchester Wood’s furniture.

Mike, an employee since nearly day one 36 years ago, sanding a piece for finishing.

We only use the highest quality resources here from the highest quality timber companies providing you (and us) the best wood to produce the solid furniture that I know my kids and grandkids will see at antique shops for years to come. That’s just the price we pay for making quality. That’s just the kind of ‘Made in USA’ item you receive when you buy from Manchester Wood. It has become increasingly hard to sell the larger items to wholesalers because of the competition, but we shouldn’t be silenced, and we won’t be. There is no question our furniture – for its quality – is affordably priced above and beyond competitors. However, for the most part we make simple American shaker style furniture that might sell quicker if it was cheap not affordable. But that’s not our business, that’s not our model, or the message of our leader who built this company we rest our hat on today. Manchester Wood is a family-run business that operates as families do, not as a corporation. We operate using 3 Principles – and you’re going to hear them a lot from us – Value, Honesty, and Community.

Our value is the dedication to solid wood when most competitors have moved to cheaper resources like plastics and lower grade wood (like particle board). We’ve remained American hardwood; that’s the kind-of solid wood that makes a grown man able to stand on a Manchester Wood TV tray table without anything happening. Try that at a box store emphasizing foreign quantity over American quality.

Our honesty speaks for itself. Including this blog and all the others we’ve ever written. From our mailers, product copy, site copy, instruction manuals, it’s all there. When you buy from us you’re buying ‘Made in USA’ furniture; you’re buying a piece of home, and that’s beyond the stamp. 

Luke and his dad, Manchester Wood’s President, Ed Eriksen.

The community aspect is with this being a family business, not a corporation, and how it’s run like a family. It has ups and downs, twists and turns, emotions of all kinds. It’s life; and we strive to develop a loving, open environment for our employees and partners in making timeless solid wood furniture. Aside from our regular celebratory events at the mill we have a lot of other exciting news developing in the community we’d like to share with you, and that’ll come in due time as plans unfold.

So there it is, just my thoughts for today. To me, regardless of opinions, this is the price for buying solid wood furniture made in the USA from our family-run mill and retailer, Manchester Wood.

Much Gratitude,

Luke Eriksen

Manchester Wood: American Made Furniture

The Pride of Made in the USA Furniture

‘USA Made’ furniture is Manchester Wood furniture; and as American furniture manufacturers we recognize the importance of things made in America – here – at home. It provides a level of rootedness in tradition and stability, remembering who we are and what we can do as a people with our own hands. It’s not a flag-toting nationalist perspective, a “rah-rah” thing…it’s about not losing sight of each other. Not forgetting the craftsmanship and resources so bountifully available to us through products made in America.

Instead of deals and steals, chopped down prices outsourced to sweat-shops to make due for America’s overzealous consumption hunger, we stand in a new America and say “we want quality, affordability, and a sense of where things we support come from.” This revolution in thought touches on all aspects of our lives, and even with those who supposedly run it in Washington. By touching on tradition, by remembering each other, we reconnect with the pride of who we are – as people of earth and as family of America. In this family, as both a country, and as this business, Manchester Wood now being a 3^rd generation family-run business (excluding our woodworking history outside Manchester Wood since 1891) we take pride in what we make. We produce solid wood furniture, American made furniture in fact, as our brand claims. And we wish for nothing more.

May the desire of quality ‘Made in USA’ furniture run forever more; and if you’re contemplating the extra few dollars it may take, or where it’ll fit in your home – we promise it will, because this type of quality solid wood furniture is made from your home. Born, raised, and produced in America; from a tree seed to a TV Tray Table; Desk, or Adirondack folding chair. It’s all here for you. Keep it Made in America today.

Our latest ad in Yankee Magazine!

Be sure to check out the Portable Folding Work Desk, only $89.95! Great value!
Shop: www.manchesterwood.com

Top End Table Designs

Periodical End Table with Drawer

End table furniture is a big part of Manchester Wood. We pride ourselves on the end tables for sale we provide. From narrow end tables to large storage end tables, the variety of wooden end tables we craft is something we take pride in. With our popular Chairside series, featuring the ultimate space-saver, the Chairside Storage Table, the eccentrically fun Chairside Drawer Table, the Magazine Rack, and Bookshelf all encompass an array of storage end table options. Other more historic wood end tables from our handcrafted, solid wood furniture family brand include the Periodical End Table with Drawer, the Slate Top End Table featuring locally mined slate just a few country miles from our “mill” in the Adirondack foothills; as well as the showcasing and elegant Glass Top End Table.

At Manchester Wood, we’re always developing new end tables for sale, to provide you, our customer, the best in quality made in USA furniture, with a functionality that carries fantastic features and benefits for your home or office furnishings.  

A recent addition to our end table furniture, as well as the TV tray table category, is our hybrid solid wood furniture piece, the Urban Camp Tray Top End Table. Along with a collection of Tray Top options includes the Urban Camp Tray Top Coffee Table, and Urban Camp Tray Top Sofa Table. The Tray Top End Table is a versatile item incorporating key features of several of our successful furniture pieces. It can fall along the lines of our small end tables and narrow end tables for compact placement in tight spaces, yet can expand in function with a lift-off tray top making it ideal for tray table use when needed.

All-in all when it comes to wood end tables, take a look at what we have to offer. To visit our online store, featuring our top end table designs, click here.

Manchester Wood’s Blog Comment Giveaway

This Month’s FREE Raffle…

the Chairside Drawer Table

Chairside Drawer Table

To enter this month’s free giveaway please comment on one of our blog entries in the month of May. You’ll have from May 1st to May 31st to add your thoughts in the mix of our discussions around ‘Made in USA’ furniture, product spotlights, historical moments in our brand, and day-to-day news around “the mill,” our home.

Visit our blog site and leave a comment where you see fit. We’ll be notified as soon as you do so, and your name and email will be entered into the random raffle drawing for this month’s free solid wood furniture piece handcrafted by Manchester Wood.

This month’s free item is our popular Chairside Drawer Table, a $199.95 value given absolutely free, including shipping to the winner of the raffle.

Contribute to our active blog by simply saying hello, or sharing your thoughts on a particular topic.

We’re excited to hear from you,

Manchester Wood: American Made Furniture

Mother’s Day 20% Off Sale on Tea Cup/Mug Stand!

Tea Cup/Mug Stand

This Mother’s Day celebrate mom with a quality made in USA product made of solid hardwood that offers a place for her coffee or tea while relaxing or reading. Manchester Wood’s unique Tea Cup/Mug Stand is an antique Americana inspiration. A quintessential historic early American solid wood furniture piece that comes from our $64 Gifts for U.S. Jobs Collection, which endeavors to stimulate the American economy by offering our customers affordable pieces of furniture that encourage U.S. job growth.

Gift that special woman in your life and support American jobs with 20% off an already affordable $64 item bringing your total to just over $50 including free shipping (always)!

Type “Mom” in the coupon code box at checkout on ManchesterWood.com when you order yours today. Offer runs from April 30th through Mother’s Day, May 12th.

Read our online reviews about this product:

“I am very pleased with the tea cup stand. It is well made and nice looking. It was just what I needed beside a chair that did not have space for an end table. I like it so well, I may order another one.” -JB, 1/3/13

“Very good concept, wide enough to fit any size mug or cup. Can move it anyplace in or outside. Just put it out of the way when not needed. Answers the need when you need a place to set a cup or glass when standing or sitting.” -RJ, 12/27/12

High Point Market & It’s Sneak Peek at 2014 Trends

As a business solely dedicated to American furniture manufacturing from the Adirondack foothills in which we mill and craft our solid wood furniture – as well as the place we call our home, the High Point Furniture Market this spring showed tremendous growth potential for Made in USA furniture, and the housing and furniture market at large. It appears the rebound of the economy is in full swing with housing sales continuously rising since the last market in fall of last year. With new homes comes new furniture, with new jobs comes new inspiration, and at High Point this year we learned a few things. We found our shaker furniture style is desirable across the many, many cultures that are represented at High Point. There is a connectedness, like-mindedness in honesty, and a quality of high craftsmanship that is found in Manchester Wood furniture; and how great it was to be acknowledged by so many who stopped and visited our booth.

Our Spring High Point Market Showroom.

We’re famous for our Adirondack folding chairs, but we received most acclaim this market for our solid cherry furniture; namely the cherry coffee tables and cherry end tables with a natural beauty, a timelessness that only solid cherry provides.

The most important thing that was made clear to us this market was that USA made furniture is competitive again, not only for its quality, but also for the socioeconomic changes that are coming to be in China. They too as a nation are requesting a life of higher quality, with a better pay, and rightfully so. We never took advantage of the downtrodden social crisis in China and other foreign lands where manufacturing could be done pennies on a dollar compared to working in the US. We stayed as the Market Press reported in their article of us while at High Point, “a family business since day one…staying with the made in USA tradition.” The options of course of outsourcing were tempting due to the profit margins, but we knew we’d lose our integrity of producing quality furniture with ethical standard. So we stuck it out, continued to design and grow in ways we knew to survive. This market proved the surviving days for American furniture manufacturers are ending with more and more business returning to the U.S. We’re the strongest we’ve been in years and we’ll continue to develop new furniture and collections constantly for your enjoyment as well as continuing to provide pieces that have proven themselves as requested by you, our loyal customers.

Snapshot of Market Press article.

For your interest in upcoming trends, as well as for ours as we’ll be watching closely and taking into strong consideration all that is happening in the market. We will be designing fresh new looks for your enjoyment for the rest of 2013, 2014 and beyond. High Point Market partnered with WGSN-HomeBuildLife to bring top trends for 2014. The trends were broken down into three categories – Neo-Geo, Next Nature, and N.D.A. as described below. Perhaps it’ll help you in designing your new home, your dream home, or reinventing the space you’re presently living in! All in all, expect great things to come from Manchester Wood, your American made furniture supplier these coming seasons, and the quality living product we provide.

Neo-Geo
The layering of geological formations is key in textiles and surface materials. Mineral and stone patterns dominate and a crafted minimalism help people enjoy real-time versus virtual-time.
Next Nature
Boundaries between humanity, technology, and design are redrawn as we find architecture winding through the forest and furniture growing like plants.
N.D.A
“New Digital Aesthetics” (NDA) – Designers are creating a new “rendered reality,” with real objects that look as if they belong in a virtual world. Infinite pixelization, a fading of edges, and designs that seem to go on infinitely are key.

Manchester Wood has designed and produced quality, affordable, eco-friendly solid wood American made furniture in the Green Mountains of Vermont and Adirondack foothills of New York for over 35 years.

Another Kind of TV Table Tray: New Tray Top Wooden End Tables

Our Urban Camp Tray Top End Table is an innovative piece of living room furniture. Now made available on our online store, ManchesterWood.com. The slatted top can be removed, exposing a middle and bottom shelf underneath with plenty of storage capacity. We thought about our popular TV tray tables when the sample arrived on the showroom floor. Our folding tray table is an incredibly convenient piece of solid wood furniture with easy stow-away design, especially when bought as a TV tray set. However, this new Tray Top designed furniture, which is also available as a coffee table and sofa table, allows storage in the form of becoming a tabletop! Pretty convenient we felt, and unique to the genre of mobility in furniture, especially as wood end tables.

At Manchester Wood we’ve specialized in narrow end tables and small end tables, but this Urban Camp Tray Top End Table unleashes a whole other character of design in our more recent end tables, with storage and versatility beyond all others. As with all our made in USA furniture, its been resourced and crafted from Northeast hardwood in our “mill” in the Adirondack foothills of New York; built to last generations.

To view the Urban Camp Tray Top End Table, Coffee Table, and Sofa Table, click here.

To view all our handcrafted wood end tables, click here.

These ‘Urban Camp Tray Tops,’ now available, are a preview to our new Urban Camp Collection, which merges classic Americana solid wood furniture design with a signature simple, clean storage capacity, as well as versatility with these ‘Tray Tops.’ A modest yet brightly drawn aesthetic that brings a lightness and functionality to any home, furnishings available in either Chestnut or Golden Oak finish.

Manchester Wood’s American Classic Adirondack Folding Chair

A limited time only Manchester Wood Adirondack Chair for sale currently on ManchesterWood.com.

A variation of this blog was featured on L.L. Bean’s Trail Mix during Labor Day weekend last year. It was written by Luke Eriksen, grandson of Manchester Wood’s founder Clifford Pierce, and Nathaniel Gibson, a freelance writer based in Southern Vermont.

Over the past century, the Adirondack chair has become a classic piece of American outdoor furniture. Originally conceived as a fairly basic design in the early 1900s in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, where our mill is presently located, has been redesigned in numerous styles with various features since its inception. The Adirondack chairs that Manchester Wood offers today incorporate the best of these refinements to make it convenient and comfortable, while still holding true to its distinct American heritage.

The design for our classic Adirondack Folding Chair originated when our founder Clifford Pierce, during the early 1980s, spent summers with the family at his lakefront camp on Lake George in the Adirondacks of New York. While taking boat rides on the lake, “the boys” and Cliff would pass by various old family estates that had Adirondack chairs on their property, set by campfire pits or on sprawling front yards and, most iconically, on docks. There were many styles and most appeared aged and worn, falling apart over just a couple seasons. Cliff reckoned it was because they were made out of pine and scrap crates, which were the common materials, used for Adirondack chairs at the time.

After learning of Cliff’s interest in the chairs, a friend and neighbor at the lake happily gave Cliff one of his Adirondack chairs to study and reference dimensions. Thus began Manchester Wood’s development of the Adirondack chair. The timing was excellent. Previously, Manchester Wood had focused on making smaller solid wood products, such as towel holders and spice racks, but during the early 1980s we transitioned to producing larger solid wood furniture pieces. The Adirondack chair fit in perfectly with this transition.

Early on it was decided that the chairs should be foldable. Easy storage was a key feature in Cliff’s mind as he had seen too many prematurely weathered and dilapidated chairs on the docks and shores of Lake George. Unlike bulkier designs that were a hassle to move and took up too much space to store inside easily, the folding design did not take up as much space and encouraged customers to keep the chairs inside over the winter.

Adirondack chair from the 1984 Chicago Housewares Trade Show

The Adirondack Chair designed by Cliff was introduced at the Chicago Housewares Trade Show in 1984 where it became a hit, and an eventual iconic brand image for one of our leading wholesale accounts we continue with today. The Adirondack Chair they knew was going to be a hit, although with a few changes. They asked for the design to be made a bit more traditional, with wider arms and seat legs, and a tapered back. “But,” they told us, “keep that folding idea!”

From this collaboration, our initial Adirondack Chair for sale was born, debuting in their catalog during the spring of 1985. Over the years it has become famous for its quality solid wood construction, durability and ease of storage, and remains the perfect finishing touch for beach and lake houses, porches, decks, patios and many other outdoor spaces.

We think that if Cliff were out on a lake today, he would be pleased to see that in the place of many of the weathered hulks that initially inspired him are the Adirondack chairs that he helped create, still in good condition thanks to their durable, folding design.

Manchester Wood is proud to announce the next generation of our folding Adirondack chair and extended collection of the same inspiration in the coming early summer months of this year… stay tuned.

To visit our current online catalog, visit ManchesterWood.com

Manchester Wood has designed and produced quality, affordable, eco-friendly solid wood American made furniture in the Green Mountains of Vermont and Adirondack foothills of New York for over 35 years.