Plant Tour of Simply Cedar
This page will show you that we are an established business that actually builds log furniture, unlike what many web storefronts claim. We hope this gives you the confidence to purchase from Simply Cedar. How we build our furniture from start to finish.The varied processes that occur in the making of log furniture are not as simple as many people think. Numerous companies have started that tried to manufacture cedar log furniture, but they did not succeed because of the demand for quality and handcrafting skills that are needed in this industry. Here's a review of how we go about making our cedar furniture: 
Cedar logs are brought into the post yard in the raw form directly from the forest. Here is a picture of one of the many piles of cedar logs and cedar post that we purchase yearly to keep the operation going.
Once the cedar is in the yard, the first of the many harvesting processes start with debarking (taking off the bark from the cedar post). Only the cedar logs that are under 7" in diameter are the ones that get debarked, and are used in the building of pieces of furniture like our cedar log beds or our famous log swings. This cedar bark is the mulch that you see in the hardware stores for sale. (Below is the start of a peel.)
The larger cedar logs that come in are called bolts, which we saw into cedar lumber on our sawmill. The wood from the sawmill is used in specific parts of our furniture like the seats on our log rocking chairs, the back laths on our log tea sets and garden benches/log love seats etc. The cedar lumber is graded carefully throughout the entire building process of the furniture to give our customers a top quality piece of rustic heirloom. Cedar lumber that is not used in the wood furniture plant is chipped up by a large tub grinder. (These are the cedar chips you see in the hardware stores.) All the cedar lumber and cedar post will be stored under a roof to dry, until needed for the cedar furniture. Again, the lumber and post are graded to our strict quality standards for the log furniture.
To start the building process we take the debarked cedar post and put a peel on them making them smooth and clean, and it really smoothes out the knots as you can see below (a picture of a part from a cedar log bed we made). This kind of peel is called a german peel (named because the germans were the first known to peel with a drawknife). These cedar posts are stored for future use, and cut to predetermined lengths that are blueprinted in the furniture plant. Depending on the piece for each component, they are either doweled or rounded. Our dowels are 1 1/2 " in diameter, one of the largest diameters of any log furniture builders out there. Once that step is finished, specific pieces will be drilled with precision for a perfect fit.  
Thank you from all of us at Simply Cedar. Please call if you have any questions with our furniture 877-842-3327. Joseph LaPointe |
