EVER WONDER WHY YOU'RE DRAWN TO INDUSTRIAL FURNITURE?
A lot of people see our furniture and talk about how they love the industrial style. Funny thing is, we didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Let’s make industrial furniture.” It just fits in with our aesthetic, our capabilities and our philosophy.
First, let’s talk about what “industrial” is. Industrial furniture is inspired by old factories and warehouses from the first half of the 20th century, and the hard-working folks who toiled in those factories. Back then, the prevailing philosophy was that if you use high quality materials and build something right, it’ll last forever.
The beauty of industrial furniture lies in the simplicity of its raw materials – solid wood and durable metal – and a timeless, no-nonsense design. It has a natural humility about it that inspires respect for the hard work that went into making it.
Despite that simplicity and humility, industrial furniture still manages to make a bold statement without being over the top. That’s because it doesn’t try to make a statement. It just does.
Today, a lot of companies are trying to cash in on the resurgence of the industrial trend. Original industrial furniture is hard to come by, so most people rely on reproductions for their homes. There are three schools of thought when building a reproduction.
You can go through scrap heaps and salvage yards, look for reclaimed wood and old metal parts, and repurpose them into furniture. You can mass produce furniture as cheaply as possible by using thin metal, veneer plywood and faux finishes, and outsourcing the manufacturing to overseas factories.
Our approach is to build furniture to the same standards of quality and sturdiness of the 1930s, but with brand new materials and design software as a guide. The Bison Woodworking team has decades of experience in woodworking, metal fabrication and manufacturing that allow us to build one-of-a-kind, industrial furniture pieces for our customers.
Consider us the opposite of the big box furniture stores. We don’t do mass productions, and we’re not trying to cash in on the latest trend. We take the same approach to building furniture today as we did when we started the company in a garage. One piece at a time, built the right way.
We’re happy to build furniture that falls into the industrial category, but not because we’re trying to be industrial. That just happens to be the look and philosophy that’s most aligned with ours. And that’s good enough for us.