Hey friends! I thought I would address the top 10 questions we receive at festivals and online. A few of these will be elaborated on in future blog posts, so I tried to keep these answers short. If you ever have any questions about anything, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!
How did you get into woodworking?
- Brian started woodworking in 2016, when we were planning our wedding and needed furniture to fill a bar area for our reception. He decided to build a custom bar and high top tables for the event, which he really enjoyed doing! After that, he started experimenting with shelves, frames, and wall art, and we started doing festivals the following spring. Our style has evolved a lot over the years!
Where do you get your wood?
- We work mainly with cedar fencing, old oak flooring, barn wood, and pallet wood and we collect the material from local sources. Sometimes people approach us and want to give us the lath or flooring that just came out of a house remodel, or the pallets that are piling up outside of their business. Reach out to us if you have any awesome barn wood ;)
How long does it take you to make each piece?
- This is a hard question to answer because most of the time comes in during the prep work. Once we have the material, we need to prepare it for our use which includes removing all of the nails from each piece, ripping the boards down to a common size, sanding all pieces, and then staining when we need to. When we have a lot of wood prepped, then we can start creating the art! Even then, it’s hard to tell how long because each piece needs a few glue ups, which can take from a couple of hours to overnight to dry. The short answer is, it takes many many hours to make each piece.
Do you both do this full time?
- Yes! We started Forested Way while we had full time jobs, and did festivals on the weekends. Then within a few months we were able to transition to working part time and adding more festivals, taking commissions, and growing our business. As of early winter 2017 we were working full time for ourselves and it’s been great ever since!
Where do you work out of?
- We work from our home just outside of Raleigh, NC. We have a workshop in our backyard that we build when we moved into our house in 2020.
What do each of you do for the business?
- Brian is the driving force behind the woodworking side of the business. He has the ideas and brings them to life! Tracy helps with the wood prep/finishing work/cutting smaller pieces on the scroll saw and does the social media management, festival applications, document organization, etc. One couldn’t run the business without the other!
Where do you find inspiration?
- We have been known to take pictures of cool designs we find on carpets, tile work, sweaters, etc., and use them as inspiration for our pieces. Brian took a picture once of a shadow cast on the wall by two different lights hitting the corner of a picture frame and turned it into a piece…so we never really know where inspiration will find us! And, of course, nature is big in our designs as you can tell by the mountain range panels, so the outdoors is always a huge inspiration.
Can I buy online?
- Yes! You can shop our online store here. However, the best way to shop with us is in person at one of our festivals. This way, you’ll get to see everything we have in stock, you can see the pieces in person, AND you’ll save money on shipping!
Do you take custom orders?
- We do take custom orders. If you’re interested, reach out to us via the Contact page on this website, or send us a message on social media.
Where can I find you next?
- We are always booking new events, which you can find here, on the Events page on our website. Subscribe to our email list for updates right to your inbox!