Greg Aanes Furniture
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  • Info Home
  • FURNITURE CATALOG
    • Beds
    • Barstools
    • Casework
    • Desks and Desk Chairs
    • Dining Tables
    • Smaller and Occasional Tables
    • Seating
    • Serving Tables
  • Blog
  • FAQ
  • About Us
    • Faces
  • Contact
  • Particulars
    • Hardwoods
    • Working Together
    • Seat Coverings
    • Seat Covering Size, Orientation and Considerations
    • Drawings
    • Shipping
    • Utility

Good used Furniture Listings, only our own

11/13/2019

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Only our own furniture which is becoming classic by now. Excellent values here, I won't bother to post it if otherwise. Because we don't have space for showing used furniture, everything listed is in the home still (unless otherwise noted). You may contact the owner directly or contact me. let me know if you have something to list and only if we made it or made some of the set. This is not a "craigslist" of furniture, only very high quality craftsman furniture.  While its not guaranteed like new, you do have the makers standing behind it and ready to make any repairs or touch ups if requested. Its not like these pieces are orphans drifting around the world without parents watching after them.

Am I nuts to list used furniture which will be taking sales away from the new furniture we make? Maybe, but I care too much about what we make and our fantastic customers to turn a blind eye.

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Rock Maple Extension Round Table with Four Pacific Diners- (Bonyun, in Port Townsend)

11/13/2019

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48" Diameter Rock Maple extension table with two leaves extends to a 7’ oval and will comfortably 
seat 6.  The four Pacific Dining chairs, also in Rock Maple, have webbed genuine leather seats. $3500 
for the set. This lovely dining set is located in Port Townsend. Delivery can be arranged. The owner 
would prefer to keep the set together, but would consider selling the chairs separately. The table was 
made by McKinnon Furniture of Seattle (closed). New cost for the set $8400. Rock maple is a superb 
wood, and this is an excellent value. ​

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Desk Chair base options

4/17/2019

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Pacific Desk Chair with former nylon base


​Currently in the design prototype fabrication stage is a finished metal base by Brian Gilman. Its like planting unknown flower seeds. I don't know what he will come up with but I know it'll be good. Stay tuned.
The old nylon bases have evolved. We now offer two new choices, soon to be three.
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Plain Steel Base
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Wood Clad Base
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First Look at our Thin Edge Bed and homage to George Nelson (1908-1986)

4/17/2019

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Nelson bed made by Greg Aanes Furniture
​Our Lizzie Bed owes its heritage to George Nelson also. At this point I see yet another design on the horizon based on this theme.
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Lizzie bed by Greg Aanes Furniture
It was 1954 when George Nelson created his Thin Edge group of designs for Herman Miller Furniture Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dirk DePree, the Chairman of Herman Miller, had selected Nelson to be the company's Director of Design despite Nelson having no experience designing furniture.  DePree was more interested in Nelson’s insight into the best way to make furniture innovative and useful. Nelson was offered a contract that allowed him the freedom to work outside of Herman Miller, and to use designs from other architects that Nelson had worked with. His Thin Edge Group is still sold today by Herman Miller. It is also being made by nummerous offshore manufacturers and sold through Design Within Reach and Hive and takeoffs of this design may be found at West Elm and HedgeHouse. I have observed a few things regarding these takeoffs and the mass manufactured versions. The price seems nice, but once all the boxes arrive on your doorstep and you are assembling the bed the construction might seem minimalist. In other words lots of lightweight fasteners between the pieces allow for loosening and movement.  They are a good value given what you pay, but bed joints not immutably fastened only become more and more loose. And with the weight of a few people the stress on the joints multiplies.

But back to the designer. In his time George Nelson seemed not only unconventional and tastefully noncommercial, but at times negative. "...the career of an architect who advocated the end of architecture, a furniture designer who imagined rooms without furniture, an urban designer who contemplated the hidden city, an industrial designer who questioned the future of the object and hated the obsession with products."


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Liffey Bench Finds good home...

4/12/2019

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Tis fascinating to see what is our customers focus and tastes as the years roll by.  We are never making an evenly distributed palette of furniture, instead our sales action comes in clumps of furniture types and clumps of wood types.  Occasionally I get home (or in this case office) shots, which is a treat for us, to see the furniture actually in use. This bench is midway up Long island in a Naturopaths' waiting room. Nice to know it gets a revolving team of kids climbing on it and getting read to by their parents while they sit on it. This one is 66" long.



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Conflict? Reconciling differences?

4/1/2019

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All this media discussion about conflict and how to deal with it, but I'm not so sure conflict needs to happen or even is desirable. Is conflict a secondary experience, the result of a persons creepy feelings which arise around different ideas and opinions which need to be reconciled so we can function and excel as a group? Whatever that group is- school, committees, work, meetings and so on. Can we move beyond the feelings of conflict and simply see our differences as merely requiring work? Here is a LinkedIn post I was compelled to write after seeing the discussions about "conflict" banking, and how to relax during conflict. Assumptions that conflict is inevitable. 

"Conflict or Adjusting our assumptions and goals? After having just spent some time in a conflict avoidant culture and observing how differing ideas are reconciled while avoiding a feeling of conflict, I think most of us are underskilled at dealing with differences. In other words fears and yucky feelings frequently arise when conflicting ideas need to be addressed. I think as leaders we can do a lot to create a world where differences are an opportunity to reach a higher level of group excellence. Posturing for dominance or puffery  becomes  crass and foreign to the group, while creative thinking becomes infectious and exciting."

I don't think conflict is inevitable at all. Differences in ideas and feelings are inevitable. But those differences do not have to be a threat to our sense of self. After all, isn't the "self" more of an allegation than a fact?
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I love making furniture but....

2/24/2019

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Enough is enough, its time to go skiing and traveling. I'm not getting any younger and the long many days have cornered me into taking a break. My commitment to the business is the same as it has been for the past forty years, but as a well known person said "the mountains are calling". Thus its hut to hut skiing in Norway for a few weeks on a few different trips.

That means no cell or data service, except when I return to marginally populated area between trips, so leave your Emails. Texts will be a mess due to the quantities and organization. Please, just emails!

Upon return: Heckofatrip. It is heartwarming to rediscover that even after 60 the corporeal body still kicks in to meet the world with enough stimulus. In other words as the days progressed I did see increasing strength, fitness and comfort with the cold. It is amazing to find content comfort in skiing in brutal weather conditions. Its probably good they denote the wind speed in meters per second. 26 M/S wasn't intimidating when I didn't know what it was. I found it interesting to be surrounded by our group of twelve and their chattiness but not knowing what was being said save for a few words. Somehow that wasn't frustrating. 
​Sop a few of the hundreds of pictures are below.
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On the way to Fellsbu hut in the Rondane mountains.
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1400 meters altitude on the Hardangarvidda, just left Kraekkja Hut. Finalkly no wind, but 20 below C.
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Almost 30 Meters/Second. At that windspeed the tracks ahead of you drift in almost immediately.
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​   Jotunheim 2000

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Solid Wood- an adventure

2/15/2019

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Wood has some odd behavior. Once a tree is cut down it is not alive, and neither does it need to breathe, yet it does have seasonal shrinkage in certain directions but not others. No shrinkage in the "0" direction (see the top right photo). Maybe a little, .01%, if you want to be exact, but not enough to matter in use. Across the grain in the "1" direction it shrinks almost 10%! And what really makes it difficult is wood shrinks only 4% in the radial "2" direction. These percentages apply to thoroughly dried wood to 6% moisture content. These are just the seasonal movement percentages for dry wood! 

Thats why it warps, splits and changes shape as it dries requiring special techniques to build with (as shown in the middle right diagram). That is where plywood has changed the world. The wood plies alternate in direction, and as long as the plies are 1/8" or less in thickness they lock each other down into a stable non-moving sheet of plywood. The diagram at the lower right is courtesy of​www.lozidesigns.com, specialists in making cool plywood designs.

Why use solid wood if its so tricky to use and costs more as a material? Some of that increased cost is not knowing what you are getting into until you cut it open!

​See my next blog post for differences in building furniture with solid wood versus plywood.
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Are You Hiring?

2/13/2019

1 Comment

 
I just received another brief message through Facebook. All it said was "Are you hiring?"

So as I sent off my standard reply, I thought why not post it here also. I'm beginning to think people believe they are doing the best thing by sending out these three word inquiries. That it is nice and efficient of everyone's time. That with enough three word inquiries something will come back.
Are we hiring? I'm always on the lookout for good people. If you are looking to work here take this tip (and these apply to any employer). 1.In person visits are crucial. If we're not worth the time of a visit or at least a phone call we must not mean much to you, and working here means learning a long set of skills. If we are going to devote ourselves to your development, then you mean a lot to us. And we should mean a lot to you.  We hire people, and we want to see our relationship and your skills grow.  We don't hire warm bodies to be a cog in the machine.  Try out a person to person approach to working here! 
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Pricing Policy for Existing Customers- your garantee

10/25/2018

1 Comment

 
Time to get this policy out in print. Once you have made a purchase I hold the pricing on any further of our items to that purchase date for ten years. Bought a Cherry Wood Seat Brendan Rocker in 2009 for $2100?  You can buy another one now in 2018 for the same price. I do have to cap the savings at 16% from the original price to today's price to account for massive wood cost increases or increased design complexity (we continually improve everything we make).

Sure it seems crazy to my former marketing/ business consultant, however now that I'm approaching the sunset years of my career with no visible successor I have the freedom to treat people just as I want to be treated.



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    Written by Greg.

    Founder and Owner of Greg Aanes Furniture

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Showroom-Office
​2109 Queen Street
Bellingham, Washington 98229
1+360.389.2714 US
​1+604.670.0502 Canada


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​The Shop
​2115 Queen Street
Bellingham, Washington 98229
1+360.389.2714



Choose the email name you wish to send to below and  add it in front of    @nwchairs.com -
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Why this format? To foil the heartless spammers who want to make money by other peoples sweat.
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