We have a set in the showroom now.What would I do without customers ideas? Three nesting tables with three colored inlaid leather tops. Actually its recycled leather because I am able to get a wide variety of colors in small pieces, unlike genuine leather where I have to buy an entire cowhide of one color. The largest is 20" wide x 20" deep x 20" tall in Cherry wood. 

The bad news is out: Geek Chic has locked their doors. The chairs and barstools they sold? They were designed made by us. We did not receive any of the deposits on them and are stuck with money owed also. My heart goes out to all those who lost their deposits with nothing to show but frustration, and have come up with a formula to enable customers to get their (ours) furniture possibly at the same total cost. If interested contact me at greg"at"nwchairs, or 360-389-2714. We will be building a few reproductions of their Vanguard tables also.

Please remember, we never ask for more than a 50% deposit.

We refer to the standard seat height on our chairs as 18”. Just as a 2x4 is actually 1-1/2 x3-1/2”, our 18” seat height is actually 17 3/4”. Seat Height is always measured to the top edge of the seat as shown in the diagrams below.

Well designed seating has a slope into the chair so that the front of the seat is about 1/2” higher than the back. Without any slope, the sitter may feel like they are sliding off of the chair. We do not adjust this measurement.
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Based on our thirty five years of designing and building chairs we have found that 1/2” or less difference between seat heights is not meaningful, which may be observed while measuring the thousands of differing chairs in our world.
 
Here is a more detailed breakdown of our height measurements:

• If the seat is wood, then this height is 17-11/16” +-1/8”, measured to the top edge of the front corner of the seat.
• If the seat is a cushion then the floor to top of cushion measurement is 18-1/4” +-1/8”,  measured to the absolute top of the cushion at the front. Do not measure the waterfall or round over edge. Sight directly across the top plane of the seat. The cushion will compress at a differential rate depending on the size and weight of the person, and compresses further into the webbing.
• Felt feet add an additional 3/8” the the seat height.
• Plastic Glides add an additional 1/4” to the seat height.

​When most people think about business owners they’re thinking about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or some other flashy high-powered CEO. This image of the high-powered CEO simply isn’t reality for the vast majority of business owners across America. Most business owners are people like you who took something they loved and ran with it.
 
Small businesses constitute 99.7% of all employer firms in the United States. These businesses make up over 66% percent of all newly created jobs. These businesses are run by passionate people who decided to pursue the things in life that they care the most about. Greg Aanes did exactly that in 1981 when he founded Greg Aanes Furniture.
 
I’ve only worked here for two months, and in that time I’ve seen and learned more about the reality of running a small business than I could have possibly imagined. Yes, once you choose to strike out and start your own business much of your time will be taken up with the actual running of the company; but there will still be time to pursue the passion which got you to this point in the first place.
 
For at least an hour every day Greg makes sure to go down into the shop and work on making the furniture he loves. It isn’t all fun and games of course. Without going into the shop and keeping everything running in the shop, the business simply wouldn’t operate as smoothly. He loves to do it, but it’s also necessary.
 
Most successful businesses aren’t run by people who sit in a high-rise office building disconnected from the roots of their business. Most businesses are run by people who still go into the shop and put together a rocking chair. Because it’s necessary, because they love it. These are the people who run the country. People like Greg, people like you, who have a passion and chose to pursue it. Chase after your passions, it worked for Greg, and it can work for you.

​Wood isn’t just wood; every wood has different properties. Every wood we use has been selected for its color, weight, and durability to make sure that we are using the best woods possible for our furniture.

​Mahogany
Sapele Mahogany is an African wood which has a fine interlocking grain. Similar in hardness to Cherry, Sapele is much harder than other variants of Mahogany, making it the best choice for making furniture. Almost completely rot and decay resistant, Sapele can be used in a wide variety of environments, holding its form and color in the toughest of conditions.

​Mango
This Hawaiian wood is one of the softer woods we sell. Its strongest feature lay in Mango’s aesthetics; the dark “lightning bolt” patterns coupled with the yellow, black, or even pink highlights on the golden wood give Mango an exotic look incomparable to anything else we sell. Dense enough to create long lasting furniture this wood is the ideal wood for our Brendan Rocker.

Throughout years of trying out every available wood, these eight are the ones which have worked best. Figuring out which woods make the best furniture has not been an easy process; we previously carried woods like Beech and Cascade Maple, eventually realizing that they simply don't produce furniture of the same quality as the woods we use today. Having top-tier woods is a necessity for us - we make the best furniture at Greg Aanes Furniture, and the woods we use have to reflect that.

We recently hired a new bookkeeper, and learned something surprising in the process. We found that most of the people applying to the job, an extremely detail oriented bookkeeping position, paid little to no attention to what the directions and description on the job posting actually said.
 
In the application instructions we asked that people send their applications in as a PDF - this wasn’t due to some technological restriction that prevented us from reading other file formats; we asked for this as a preliminary screening technique. Shockingly, less than a third of the people who applied to our position actually followed these directions. Not a single person who failed was asked to come in for an interview; we didn’t want our finances handled by someone who couldn’t carefully read a simple set of instructions.
 
Attention to detail is a skill which is vital to almost any job you might come across. A furniture maker without this skill would make sub-par furniture, a waiter wouldn’t get orders right, a journalist wouldn’t write quality stories. It’s one of the most vital skills anyone can have, and failing to demonstrate it during the application process is a huge mistake.
 
There are any number of reasons that someone could gloss over the instructions on an application, it could be due to the impersonal nature of applying online, or the sheer number of applications that someone is sending out, or it could be due to one of countless other factors. At the end of the day however, why applicants choose not to follow instructions is irrelevant - if someone can’t even follow the directions to apply to a job, why would an employer trust that person enough to work there?
 
Your job search is your business, but here’s a tip for anyone currently looking for work: pay attention to the instructions on the application. Take it from someone who has both been overlooked for positions because of this simple mistake, as well as seen what happens on the hiring end to people who fail to follow instructions. Pay attention and you’re already doing better than most of your competition.

Customers frequently come to us asking if we can sell their used furniture. This is something that we have done in the past, and while yes, we can do it, we'd rather focus on practicing the craft we love
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Chairish is a site that is used by both amateur and professional furniture sellers, and would be perfect for anyone looking to offload a piece of furniture that they have replaced or no longer have room for. The site is an online retailer that works similarly to a consignment store; the seller lists their item, Chairish decides to accept it, and when the item sells Chairish keeps at most a 20% cut of the sale price (Chairish takes less of a cut on more expensive items). The process is super simple; all you have to do to sell an item is take some photos of the piece you’re trying to sell (brows our websites for ideas on what angles work best), list your item, and when the items sells either ship it for smaller items, or Chairish will come and pick the item up if it is too large to ship through USPS or another postal service. It’s super simple, Chairish takes care of most of the actual work for you, and you don’t have to give up a huge cut of the earnings from the sale.
 
We’re suggesting Chairish because it is one of the few online retailers where you can resell one of our pieces, as they focus solely on high end furniture. If you need more suggestions or ideas on what to do with furniture you no longer have space for or no longer need feel free to drop by the shop and ask us some questions, we’re always happy to help.

A couple of weeks ago we had a booth at the first farmer's market of the season where we got to meet some of the people who make the Bellingham community the incredible place we love to call home, Getting to see so many of you, whether you are a longstanding member of the Greg Aanes community or a new face just getting to know what it is we do, was truly a privilege that we can't wait to have again. We loved seeing you guys discover the comfort of our products and admire the results of our dedication to the craft. We even gave everyone who was there a 25% discount on all the furniture they bought at the market. My personal favorite was getting to know you better as a community; new customer or returning, whether you were looking for something in particular to buy, wanted to know more about us, or even if you just wanted to chat about your day, talking to all of you was a pleasure. We can't wait to see you all again on May Sixth when we will next be at the market, in the mean time feel free to stop by our shop on Queen street and see what we have to offer or have a chat. See you soon!

I just received the following message from the daughter of past customers:

"Thank you for speaking with me on the telephone this morning.  Attached is a picture of one of the rocking chairs we discussed along with two pictures of the scratches on this chair.  The scratches appear to be superficial only.  The second chair is the same but no scratches.  These were purchased by my in-laws Lynn and Charlie Myers probably about 15 or so years ago.  

I appreciate any assistance you can provide in helping these chairs find a new home.  My in-laws loved them and took very good care of them.  After they downsized we rather quickly discovered that our lifestyle (dogs) is not the right fit for these chairs (scratches!).  Any help you can give as to suggested price is also appreciated.  

Thank you very much.  You do beautiful work. "
AV
Greg Says: They are pricing the chairs at $1000 each. As you can see it shows wear but the scratches are surface. We can repair the scratches and give the chair(s) a good "detail" for $100/1 or $175/2. We can replace the cushion  and fabric for $110 (foam and fabric from our selection).

More info to come on pricing, the customer has asked me to broker these, so contact me. I do this as a service for our customers. greg@nwchairs.com    360-389-2714