What makes T.Y. Fine Furniture’s solid wood beds, tables, and dressers – all our furniture pieces – different? We imagine that every prospective buyer asks this as they come across our brand and products, whether online or in our shop in Ohio.
We can’t answer this question right away because what makes our brand unique entails many different things, not just one. But to start, our solid wood furniture has come to be what they are because of our passion for the craft. And, out of such passion, we identified values and creative processes that allow us to hone our skills and techniques.
Carving a Niche in the Solid Wood Furniture Industry
What are the values that we speak of? The very first of these, and the one we focus on the most is maintaining uncompromising quality in every piece of furniture we make. It’s a whole journey that starts from sourcing the wood, inspecting the grade of the material, creating our designs, and producing the furniture.
Sourcing Quality Hardwood with Sustainable Intentions
We use locally grown hardwood in our furniture. This means the trees were harvested within a hundred miles of our shop. By sourcing wood within Ohio, we are able to substantially reduce the carbon footprint of the material.
In 2011, the Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA) conducted a study to investigate the carbon footprint of an average piece of furniture. My Tool Shed published an article based on the study's findings, revealing that the average piece of furniture has a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) consumption of approximately 47 kg. This amount is comparable to the emissions produced by using 5.3 gallons of gasoline.
The Common Scenario
‘Most hardwoods see thousands and thousands of miles of transport. After the trees are felled and cut into logs, they are shipped to a sawmill where they are cut into smaller pieces. Then, they are sent into the kiln to dry, which is usually done on-site.
Sometimes, the process takes much longer. This happens when logs are sold green to another broker and that broker sells it to someone who then dries the wood. After this, the dried wood goes to a distributor, and then it goes to a manufacturer. In a lot of cases, the lumber travels from distributor to retailer and then the manufacturer.
You can only imagine the amount of energy and fuel spent to do all these things.
Harvesting Wood Locally
We use local lumber from producers who own and manage a local sustainable forest. They choose trees based on a selective harvesting method, which aims to somewhat mimic the natural downfall and regeneration of trees within the forest.
Our material is then milled and dried in one facility and location only – it’s all in Ohio. Because of the proximity of our source, we can dramatically reduce the amount of time and travel needed to transport the material.
Selection and Quality Control
When we get the lumber, it's all rough, and we don’t allow anyone to process it or touch it. This is surest way we can ensure the wood quality. Moreover, we only get the highest grade of material available in the market: we do not buy lower-grade wood.
The reality is mass manufacturers buy low-grade pieces of wood, frequently paper wood, which are then pieced together with glue and finger joints. In contrast, we focus on joining full-length boards, not bits and pieces of wood. Each board is kept at its maximum width, allowing the natural beauty of the wood grain and pattern to show.
We make every effort to select materials with consistent grain patterns, as irregular grains can compromise the overall quality of the wood. Lower-grade wood often features more swirls and non-straight grains, which are prone to snapping. In fact, many wood failures result from using poor grain patterns in the wrong places.
Almost every wood failure we've encountered has stemmed from substandard material selection. This is why we dedicate most of our time to the milling process and carefully grading our materials.
Quality Craftsmanship with a Mix of Mechanical Engineering
T.Y. Fine Furniture founder Tarik Yousef poured his mechanical engineering background into furniture making. As such, our furniture is a product of combining age-old techniques and modern engineering.
In our bed frames, we have created our own proprietary joint systems. We utilize the concept of a bed bolt, which has been refined over hundreds of years. We then enhance this concept for easier assembly and disassembly while ensuring optimal strength. You can find this simple but advanced system in our Horizon, Enso, Classic Sunrise, and Modern beds.
We combined the classic bolt with our design, and the overall joint mechanism improved, mostly for the benefit of our clients. We take great pride in knowing that they're amazingly simple to assemble…and very sturdy, no compromise, no nonsense.
Another example is our process for gluing panels, which is also unique. We’ve never seen a manufacturer use a similar process before and this comes down to integrating mechanical engineering into our craft.
We minimize glue joints where we can. When we need the benefits of a glue joint, we do it in such a way that people can’t even tell that wood pieces have been glued up. We want the pieces to match perfectly and really go out of our way to make sure that it's exceptionally well done.
Our Edge
As a brand, we tend to do everything differently and try things that aren't typical in the industry. We engineer our own equipment and create our processes to maintain uncompromising quality.
If we have to redesign things to make them work, we will try and do it. This falls into our value of striving for the better even when it is different. If anything, this is what really distinguishes us as a brand and as craftspeople.
Distinguishing Our Solid Wood Beds, Tables, and Dressers
So, again, what distinguishes our furniture in the market? This is a succinct rundown of the things we’ve shared with you so far.
Wood Quality
The quality of the wood we use is a critical detail in our process. We use the highest grade of lumber possible and ensure that it remains consistent in each piece we’re making.
For example, when we create headboards, we'll go through an entire stack of wood just to select one headboard worth of material. We want you to have the best color match and the best grade there is.
Refined Details
We have designed and built machines to produce our bed frames, tables, and dressers, as with the rest of our signature furniture, in a better and more precise way. With our equipment, we can refine the tiniest bit of detail in each piece.
Even when sanding our furniture, we make sure that the process is right. Many manufacturers use 120 to 180 grit sandpaper. With us, we take it up to 600, sometimes up to 2,000 grit, to create a smoother and finer finish.
Solid Joints
The way we put our bed frames together is definitely unlike anything else on the market. We created a joint system that uses a bed bolt from hundreds of years back and incorporated it with our improved design. They’re easy to put together, but they’re also stable and durable.
A lot of beds use metal connectors that are then screwed onto the wood surface. They’re reasonably sturdy for the first five years, maybe 10 at best. But we stay away from this joinery method. We stick to our design, for efficiency’s sake, and also to maintain the beauty of the wood.
Signature Finish
Lastly, one key aspect that sets our furniture apart is our unique wood finish. This finish is made with food-grade, certified organic ingredients.
We took inspiration from traditional ingredients that have been effective for thousands of years. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we modernized the process to create a special blend.
Our signature wood finish penetrates the wood, reaching deep into the grain before solidifying. This deep-penetrating finish fully protects the wood while enhancing its natural colors and allowing the textures to shine in ways that most people have never seen or experienced before.
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The amount of work that we pour into our furniture speaks volumes of who and where we are as a brand. We don’t compromise quality and we always strive to do better.
Each piece of furniture is an embodied experience from people who are passionate about their craft. We wish to share such an experience, along with the hope that the furniture helps breathe life into the homes of our clients.