Rustic furniture design

Rustic furniture design stems from a menage of design style. Wikipedia: “Rustic furniture is furniture employing sticks, twigs or logs for a natural look. The term “rustic” is derived from National Park Service rustic style of architecture. Many companies, artists, and craftspeople make rustic furniture in a variety of styles and with a variety of historical and contemporary influences.” The rustic furniture style can find its roots in the late 1800’s. It was mainly built with simple unrefined local materials. This was basic functional no glitter furniture.

Custom wood furniture

In the modern world of custom wood furniture design, the basic definition is being stretched!  “Custom furniture design is considered a specialist area of industrial design. However, the specific ergonomic knowledge that a furniture designer must apply and the specialized construction methods and pre-manufactured components that undergo constant change in the industry make this a large area of specialization…[furniture designers] are concerned with those aspects of furniture that relate to human usage and behavior, product appeal and fashion.” —www.dia.org.au

Rustic furniture design process

Designing custom rustic furniture is what we do. We’ve chosen to specialize in natural live edge wood slab “rustic furniture” style.  At Littlebranch Farm we have chosen to sustainably source our materials, predominantly comprised of organic materials that have had a prior use and won’t end up in a landfill. It has been said that boundaries breed creativity, and specialization creates superior products. This may be true but we believe boundaries are meant to be stretched. We are committed to finding the boundaries and stretching the outer limits. Our wood furniture is made for human interaction. The natural beauty of the live edge wood slabs, root and logs that we use, combined with expertly designed functionality is the signature of our handcrafted custom rustic furniture. Whether it is a live edge wood slab rustic dining table or a custom rustic vanity or rustic office desk.

Come visit the Littlebranch Farm Studio in Nashville Tennesse, call us on the phone or email us. We’ve started the conversation, and we’re extending the invitation. Let’s talk about custom, quality crafted rustic furniture.

Littlebranch Farm Studio Tour, Nashville, TN, and the adventure begin at the showroom entrance. You’re now in live edge furniture heaven. Immediately to your left is an eight-foot rustic dining table made out of walnut with a metal industrial base with rustic dining room chairs, both standing atop a beautiful American Dakota area rug. Turn to your right, and you’ll see a large sectional sofa, a rustic piece from King Hickory’s upholstered furniture.

Littlebranch Farm Studio Tour Nashville, TN

We’ve chosen to carry premium home decor lines such as King Hickory upholstered furniture and American Dakota rugs. Thus, giving you simply the best southwestern and rustic home decor choices. If you look up, you’ll see rustic lighting (chandeliers) made from mule deer antler, fallow antler, elk antler, and some made from metal, barn wood, and rawhide. As you explore the room, you’ll find everything from rustic vanities to rustic beds. Go all the way to the left, and you’ll find a room with our copper sinks, copper farm sinks, and copper bathtubs. Rustic fireplace mantels display next to one of our two rustic office desks. Make sure to look at our natural wood coffee tables scattered about the room.

Custom burl wood furniture

Custom Rustic Furniture

After you’re finished looking around the showroom, ask for a tour of our expensive woodshop. This is where we handcraft our rustic live edge furniture. Check out some of the projects going into production. There are huge stacks of tree slabs, primarily of the redwood, walnut, and maple species to your left. There’s a large amount of twisted juniper ranging in size from a few feet to logs that are l4′ long to the left of the live edge wood slabs. You’ll find the metal racks at the far end of the shop where we store the rustic root and stump bases for our rustic tables and rustic desks—Littlebranch Farm’s custom furniture maker handcraft high-quality rustic furniture. Littlebranch Farm Studio Tour, Nashville, TN, can be seen in real-time at 901 2nd ave south.

Custom rustic log furniture is the original style of custom wood furniture by custom furniture maker Kelly Maxwell. He also teaches how to build a log bed.

Custom rustic log furniture

Hi, everyone! I’m Cathy…. Kelly’s wife.  ‘Incredibly busy’ is an understatement for Kelly these days, so I thought that I would take over management of the Littlebranch blog with a goal of posting at least once a week.  Rustic furniture has evolved over the past ten years. At Littlebranch Farm, we take pride in our commitment to not only staying on top of rustic furniture interest-trends but also to being trendsetters for innovative and creative rustic original pieces.

Custom wood furniture

In 2001, log furniture, mainly rustic log beds, was very popular. We would take four or five log beds to various shows, and we would sell out.  Rustic cedar log beds, from simple to wild, were favorites. Interest in log-based, stump pedestal vanities exploded as customers wanted a beautiful ‘attention-getter’ for the home. Other log-based items, including rustic dining tables, rustic accent tables, and twisted juniper lamps were also top-sellers.

Over time, interest in log furniture as the focus opened the door to more innovative designs, including free-form live edge wood, burl wood slabs, root bases, contemporary metal design, and custom rustic furniture.

Burl wood furniture

The use of free-form live-edge in black walnut slabs, maple burls, redwood burl, curly redwood, and quilted maple burl has attracted buyers. The beauty of these pieces lies in the free-form edge itself, as well as the gorgeous grains of the wood species. A single accent piece can truly be the focal point in any room, bringing warmth to any setting.

Burl wood slabs are leading items these days for an array of furniture, including rustic desks, dining room tables, coffee tables, accent tables, and natural wood countertops. Our customers are often awe-struck when they see a wood slab for the first time and realize the charm that it brings to the home. We’ve also seen greater interest in the incorporation of the live edge slab into the work/office setting. A desk or conference table built from live edge redwood or black walnut creates an atmosphere that anyone enjoys.

Natural wood furniture

Root bases can even ‘stand alone’ as a focal point or as a base for that unique piece of art that one wants to showcase. Our root bases come primarily from western cedar and redwood. The character of the wood displays grain patterns that are simply gorgeous and the growth patterns bring intricacies that only nature can display.

About a year ago, we began incorporating contemporary metal design into our custom wood furniture. From a 12-foot solid slab black walnut wine-tasting table to metal base bar stools, we’ve seen a clear interest in a sleeker and more modern look while retaining the beauty and warmth of natural wood.  A recent job was for an office desk with a marbled black walnut live edge top for a college professor.

Natural wood rustic log furniture

When it comes to cabinetry in a rustic home, customers realize that they do not have to settle for traditional designs. Custom rustic cabinetry can incorporate live-edge wood doors, mesh-panels, hand-forged hardware, live-edge countertops, and blending of two or more wood species. Favorite woods include recovered barn wood, knotty hickory, knotty alder, cedar, old-growth redwood, black walnut, cherry, and maple.

Rustic wood furniture

So… to wrap up…. rustic furniture truly has evolved over the past ten years. We look forward to the future as we stay on the cutting-edge of rustic furniture design. More so, we look forward to continuing to build custom, one-of-a-kind items that bring joy and satisfaction to our customers!

Natures Rustic Furniture

When we think of nature’s rustic furniture, Daniel Boone’s and his log cabin comes to mind. The basic of logs being crafted with hand tools to make simple rustic dining tables and Rustic beds. With this mindset, we believe that rustic log furniture is only for log cabin decor, but the world is changing. Nature’s natural distress and raw organic beauty have come to life in rustic furniture.

Rustic furniture can be found in modern decor to rustic decor. This meshing of styles brings the free-form style of natural wood furniture with its live edge and its natural organic beauty and the straight lines and clean edges of modern furniture. Simply adding a live edge wood rustic dining table, rustic beds, rustic lamps will bring nature into your home. Rustic dining tables can be crafted from many species of wood such as redwood burl slabs, maple burl slabs, black walnut slabs. These slabs cut from 2″ to 4″ leaving the natural live edge. Combined with many styles of bases such as redwood root base, metal bases, sculpted iron bases, simple slab base.

There is nothing like sleeping in a rustic bed crafted by nature itself. The natural warmth and beauty of a simple log bed to the artsy look of a rustic bed crafted from raw logs and burl wood slabs. To the rugged beauty of recovered barn wood.

Nature is alive and well, its natural beauty that comes from the stress of daily life that become the beauty of the eye and frees the soul. Custom rustic furniture captures natural beauty on a rustic table and rustic beds. Simply bring nature into your home. Handcrafted rustic furniture by furniture maker Kelly Maxwell.