I started Fabulous Furniture in 1973, but I started working with wood long before then. When I was twelve I used to do my paper route and then ride over to the park to look for fallen trees. I would carry them home in my press basket and carve them into forms. Some of those original pieces are still at Fabulous Furniture.

All the work you see here is made right at our workshop and showroom in Boiceville, NY. We do our own logging, looking for trees too big and misshapen to be feasible for other loggers. Many of the trees we use are rotten or dead, and both of these "defects" produce incredible grain patterns. We bring the trees back to the shop and decide if they should be cut on the conventional sawmill, which can cut only 19" wide, or the chainsaw mill, which requires more man power but can cut a board up to 50" inches wide. Some of our tables are made from one piece of wood, 30" to 50" wide, which is unheard of anywhere else.

We use only quality hardwoods: black walnut, butternut, black cherry, and a rare, diseased form of hard maple called spalted maple. Spalted maple resembles a pen-and-ink drawing or a finely grained piece of marble.

After the trees have been sawn into boards, they are kiln dried. Then we store the wood in airtight containers so the moisture content stays stable.

We put in many hours of handwork and use many types of sanders and machines to bring out the grain an inherent beauty of the wood. We then put several coats of a state-of-the-art finish that can easily withstand alcohol, water, and heavy usage. It requires no care beyond simple dusting. Nothing is stained or dyed: all the variations occur naturally in the wood.

Our inlays of butterflies, lizards, and other animals are done by first cutting the animal from a different piece of wood, tracing the pattern on the tabletop, and then carving for an exact fit. It is a slow and tedious process that took many years to perfect.

- Steve Heller

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