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Woodworking has been in Mecheal’s blood for as long as he can remember. His father owned a furniture manufacturing facility and store in Damascus, Syria, and Mecheal first began helping out in the summers when he was about ten. He began working full time after his high school graduation.

The first piece he remembers completing all on his own was a custom bed. The furniture designs in Syria were much more ornate than we build, including a lot of texture and carving. Mecheal continually developed his skills and eventually took over the leadership of a building team. He worked in his father’s shop until he came to the US in 2008, and has worked at The Joinery since that time.

Featured Builder Mecheal

Mecheal loves the precision of the dovetail joint, and the rich beauty of Western Walnut, but is not wedded to a particular style or wood species. Instead he loves the variety of pieces that he works each month, and the challenge of the custom pieces that continually come his way.

Although Mecheal is accomplished at both Beds and Chairs, he is not one to spend time relaxing, at least while he is at work. At home has a small shop, and enjoys spending time with his family, which is about to get bigger with his wife pregnant with their second child.

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Creating solid wood lounge furniture is a great challenge. It requires a delicate balance between highlighting lumber and craftsmanship, while still providing alluring comfort that makes you want to sit – and not get up. Over the past several months our Design Team, led by Taryn and Tenzin, created the Clyde Sofa and Clyde Lounge Chair. These pieces are uniquely different from our other lines, but still provide the timeless beauty and exacting quality that holds up to our lifetime warranty.

Handcrafted Clyde Sofa in Eastern Walnut with Eco Wool Navy

Clyde sofa featured in Eastern Walnut with Eco-Wool Navy.

The design intent behind the Clyde line is to focus on the incredible richness and grain of our wood material while highlighting time-honored craftsmanship techniques. The large expanses of solid wood throughout allow the cleanest and most character-rich lumber to shine, and are miter wrapped around the sides and back for a clean finished appearance. In response to the crisp edges of the frame, we use cushions with more loft, softer edges and inviting texture. Deep seating makes Clyde perfect for long book sessions or cozy movie nights. Although naturally modern, Clyde can work its way into almost any style living room through thoughtful material selections.

Both pieces are available in any of our six standard wood species. The sofa and lounge chair are currently featured in Eastern Walnut at our Woodstock showroom, and in Cherry at our downtown Portland showroom.

Goby Walnut is located just outside the Northwest Portland industrial district, and most of their lumber comes from within 100 miles of their shop.  Their material is sourced solely from hazard or salvaged trees – those that need to be cleared either because they present a hazard, or because the land is being converted to another use.  The source is predominantly from urban areas, and does not impact valuable forestland.

.Goby Walnut owners Art and Aaron

Ordinarily this material would be considered waste or sold for pulp. Goby instead upcycles it to higher value uses. We are happy to partner with a local company that provides us with fantastic material sourced from – sometimes literally – our own backyards. It allows us to build furniture that fulfills our lifetime warranty, ensuring that each tree has a second life that can rival the length of the first.

His love started on stage, but over time his passion for woodworking shifted from props to one-of-a-kind pieces that families would enjoy for generations.

Michael’s first experience in woodworking was helping to bring a set designer’s vision to life for stage productions while in college back in New York. When he moved to the Pacific Northwest, he followed his love of the theatre by building sets for Portland Center Stage performances. While bringing a new world to life on stage brought him joy, he wanted to shift into building pieces with a longer life span. Initially, he honed his skills by working from a shop at home to create pieces for his friends. Eventually he presented his portfolio to The Joinery and came on board in 2007.

 

Michael: the hands behind the craft at The Joinery

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Valentine's Sale: Love that lasts lifetimes

This Valentine’s Day, we are featuring a special couple with a very intimate relationship – Joinery beds and Soaring Heart mattresses.  They have so much in common – both are handcrafted from natural, high-quality materials.  Both are made by people with a deep commitment to their craft, as well as to the larger community.  And if that isn’t enough to ensure a serious commitment, both come with long-term warranties.

While our standard wood species allow us to build stunning dining tables, occasionally we like to experiment with different woods.  Recently we came across an incredible set of locally harvested, book matched Elm slabs and knew we could put them to good use.  The result is a gorgeous Live Edge Dining Table built by Michael, a ten-year veteran at The Joinery. The piece features an open grain pattern and unique figuring that resembles a heart shape.

Elm Live Edge Dining Table

 

We thought the table was stunning, and customers did too. It didn’t last long on our Yamhill showroom floor, but it will in it’s new home: the office of Steve Bloom, the CEO of the Portland Japanese Garden.

 

Elm Live Edge Dining Table with V-back Chairs

Today we are honored to join many distinguished Oregon companies as one of the Portland Business Journal’s 2016 Most Admired Companies in Oregon.  The Joinery is honored at #11 in the Product Makers and Designers category. We joined other outstanding companies big and small in this competitive category, including Danner, Hanna Anderson, Leatherman Tool Group, Nike, Pendleton Woolen Mills, Rejuvenation, and others.  This is quite an honor as this list is the result of input from about 450 CEO’s from around the state.

Even Mozart must have started by pecking out a few piano chords. When Hilario joined us ten years ago, his woodworking knowledge was limited to the hammer-and-nail nitty-gritty of construction carpentry. Then he came to work in The Joinery’s finish department, and over a number of years accumulated the skills and demonstrated the aptitude for the million-and-one details required to build incredible handcrafted furniture — the idiosyncrasies of each wood species, the tools, the joints, cut lists, custom design . . . .

Featured Builder at The Joinery

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Taryn, our furniture designer, and master craftsman Hilario recently teamed up to create the Maud Desk, a mid-century-inspired writing desk that’s as graceful as a gazelle, with a chameleon-like ability to blend beautifully into small spaces like a bedroom recess or a bright entryway.

Maud Writing Desk

After a great experience last year, The Joinery is again participating in the NW Earth Institute’s EcoChallenge.  With over 80% of our employees taking part, our Sustainability Team divided participants into four separate teams for an added layer of fun and friendly competition. The team came up with a new set of challenges:

  • Challenge #1: Don’t eat anything that once had a heartbeat. Whatever your take on the ethics of eating animals, a diet featuring meat and poultry has a dramatically bigger environmental footprint than a vegetarian diet. There is ample evidence that reducing meat intake also improves your health. Our goal as a company is to reach 600 meatless meals.
  • Challenge #2: Avoid to-go containers. A trash audit conducted earlier in the year (yes, our team shown below did some dumpster diving to determine what exactly we are throwing into the landfill) showed that about 10% of the trash from our Woodstock location was made up of to-go containers for food and coffee. Our goal is to eliminate the use of to-go containers in general and disposable coffee cups in particular, and to help we are providing insulated coffee containers to all participating employees.
  • Challenge #3: Daily Exercise for at least 30 minutes has a beneficial impact on mental as well as physical health. And it can also be a lot of fun.

2016 EcoChallenge

We are kicking the Eco Challenge off with a Vegetarian Luncheon this Thursday, when our four teams will begin battling it out for bragging rights.

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