MR. ED, THE HORSE, OF COURSE

Name the Horse Contest has come to a close. The winner of a $50 Gift Certificate to Amish Workbench Furniture is Barbara Sumner of Portland who suggested Amish Apple Andy. Many good names were contributed to the entries. Hard to choose. The horse, who comes from Berlin, OH in Amish Country, pulls the velveteen lined, steel wheeled family carriage of the Ray Yoder, Jr. family. It was heated with a propane heater. The rear sports an orange fluorescent triangle, the front and sides have lights, providing safety at night along the unlit roads of Holmes County, OH. Amish Workbench Furniture buys gliders from “Junior”. The most comfortable block of wood you ever sat in.

Arrow back glider by L & J Woodworking

Ten Years!

“That’d make a cute country store.” Those were the words, ten years ago, said in unison, by Jay and Carol Titsworth, when they first saw the building to become The Mohler House 1865 in Aurora, OR. Jay was one week into retirement and already bored. After several trips to craft shows and antique outlets, the merchandise started coming. Priced and put on the shelves with help from family members, The Mohler House 1865 opened Labor Day weekend in 1999. Stonewall Kitchen jams, Annie Harlin bears and hooked rugs, Paul Rung Shaker furniture, scherenschnitte, Rock Riffle Run pottery, Trapp Private Garden and Sunshine candles, Arawjo hand woven baskets, Rebecca Esh handmade quilts, placemats, hot pads, wall hangings, hand embroidered flour sack dish towels, antiques from Hearts of Ohio and Our Country Home, metal sculptures, embroidered art, original oil and watercolor pictures, note cards, books, everything Amish. Soon new Amish made furniture could be ordered. Historic moments in Aurora were the installation of a sewer line and the fire destroying Impressions Antiques. The business grew, moving to 3rd and Main in Aurora, then a chain was established with a second store in Salem at the historic Reed Opera House. New employees, more buying trips, making new friends with Amish builders, trips to pick up furniture people ordered, and the chain grew to historic Troutdale. On a roll, a fourth store opened in Tualatin with a receiving dock and more show room space. Although Aurora has been consolidated into Tualatin, there’s no question of what to do with retirement time for Jay. Come see us at any of the stores and wish us happy anniversary.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

When you upgraded your TV, or computer recently, it was frustratingly complicated, wasn’t it? No simple, bring it home, take it out of the box, plug it in. Extra this and that were needed, at additional expense, to make it work just the way you wanted.

Aha! Amish Workbench Furniture is NOT complicated, but simple. You pick it up, or have it delivered, put together with no need to buy extra screws or attachments, no confusing assembly instructions, and voila, it’s ready to use. You ordered the wood, stain color, fabric you wanted, it matches your décor; what could be more simple? Well, you might want to order a table pad to protect your new table. Holiday dinners are coming up.

Dovetail Drawers

Dovetail describes how the drawers of a furniture piece are jointed together. The best quality furniture is manufactured using dovetail construction like in our Borkholder, Millcraft, Valley View and Manasses Henry hutches, buffets, servers, dressers and nightstands.

Dovetail construction consists of a series of small “V” shapes that are cut from one surface with the opposite surface consisting of “V” shaped cut outs of the opposite shape. These pieces are locked together in such a manner it is almost impossible to separate them.

By jointing the drawers at the very end of each board gives maximum storage capacity. In addition to increased drawer capacity, jointing construction adds to the strength and longevity of the drawer and in turn, the entire piece of furniture.

At Amish Workbench Furniture even our specialty cabinets (hoosiers, pie safes, jelly cupboards and desks) use dovetail construction.

Mixing It Up

Sharing decorating successes with furniture purchased from Amish Workbench Furniture are the pluses of our business. Note the photo at right. A table and chairs, purchased at a different time than the buffet/hutch, blend in this customer’s home. This is an example of mixing it up to have finishes and colors that compliment each other, not matching exactly.

Furniture is often purchased one piece at a time, causing fits to those who want every piece to match exactly. Remember, it’s okay to have variety. Other accessories can tie the room together. Find the focal point in the room, then work around it with cherished treasures. Rotate items from storage (a.k.a. the attic, garage, under your bed, junk closet) to your walls and tables. Decorate with what you have: trying a new arrangement of pictures on the wall; grouping items by color or similar theme. Imagination, let it rise. What a pleasant surprise awaits when mixing things away from the routine arrangements. Or adding a new piece to adorn your living area: a sign, hand hooked or quilt wall hanging, an original or framed print, ceramic or pottery vase, pitcher, pewter candlestick holder, braided rug, scherenschnitte, carved swan or loon, a number of special art choices are available at Amish Workbench Furniture.

Hangin' In There

Mother Nature has certainly let us know what she can do with the sun here in the Pacific Northwest. Did you find a drawer to stuff the heavy winter blankets? Wouldn’t a quilt rack be more attractive, let the items air out? Quilt racks are great for your table runners, table cloths, or ...the kitchen towel, instead of the refrig or oven doors. Available in a number of styles, solid oak or cherry wood. No, they aren’t good for hangin’ the wet beach towels or sleeping bags!

Also available are black metal hooks, heart or ram’s head shapes, strong enough for the kitchen towel, bathroom face cloth or the winter jacket you’re not wearing this season; three sizes.

For decorative plates, there are black metal single, double or triple plate hangers. Get those pretty dishes out of the cupboard and show them off now, wowing your friends.
Wood peg rails are super by the door, where kids come in, to hang backpacks, etc. In the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, wherever you need a handy peg for hangin’. An umbrella, for those summer showers, an apron, hot pad, sweater, even a pencil on a string.

Room With a View

Some folks are fortunate to have a view of the majestic Cascade mountains. Others, a stream, lovely garden, or the neighbor’s yard. Whatever your view is, enjoy it with a gentle gliding Amish made porch glider. Available in oak (for protected outdoor areas) or treated pine. A gliding footstool completes your comfort. Gliders come in four and five foot lengths. Some have a center section that flips down to put your cups. Our grandchildren love to eat their lunch on ours, and the divider keeps Russell on his own side. Also matching gliding chairs, and end table. Perhaps you’d prefer a swing, picnic table, benches, or an Adirondack chair. Remember, 20% discount from Amish Workbench Furniture. A short turn around time from date of order. Our Amish manufacturer has no phone or fax so he receives his order from us via US mail. Then uses the public phone at the end of his road to call letting us know it’s ready for pickup. Imagine an evening, gentle breezes, your favorite crossword puzzles, happy sounds of children playing, chatting with the neighbors, finishing your dessert coffee, fighting off yellow jackets because you forgot to hang your yellow jacket trap. Sounds like an evening in Amish country. So get busy and make a space for this glider. You’ll be glad you did

Monster Mash

We were so delighted to have dinner in one of our Amish manufacturer’s homes on a recent buying trip to Holmes County, OH. Laura Yoder, our hostess, has been gracious enough to share her recipe for mashed potatoes. We love Amish mashed potatoes! We forget the “waste” line when visiting Amish country. Adjust to your family size. The recipe is for 7 people. I used it for 11, and it really needs the milk for creaminess.

Mashed Potatoes
Boil potatoes (around 9 nice ones). When soft, mash well and add: 1/2 stick real butter, 1/4 stick cream cheese (I used the 8 oz size), 1/4 C sour cream, salt to taste, milk till right consistency. Heat till hot, stirring constantly.

Our Amish cookbooks haven’t been researched to see if this recipe is in any of them. However, there are many mouth watering recipes in the Amish cookbooks available in our store. Wanna try Scrapple, Shoo fly Pie, dry corn or a sugar free recipe? Some of the books have charming snippits of Amish life. Remember, these books are available at Amish Workbench Furniture.

Sea of Brown

Furniture shopping to some people is a chore. Upon entering a store, they are greeted with a sea of brown, from one end to the other, brown, brown, brown. But wait! Have you noticed the subtleties of brown? Blue tones when Ohio Certified Stain Seely is applied to solid cherry or oak; orange red tones on quarter sawn white oak with Michael’s Cherry stain; strawberry blond tones with natural on red oak, or S-2 stain; more rich reddish tones of natural cherry darkening with exposure to light. Gorgeous! And the grain of real wood, so varied (to die for!)and interesting, versus the sameness in pattern with veneer.

Such complexity in solid wood, that suddenly it’s not a sea of brown; far from plain. Touch the wood. It will seduce you with its beauty. Matte like hand rubbed oil finish, hand rubbed urethane finish or low sheen finish, plus high sheen finishes are your choices for your furniture, to give enormous pleasure for years to come. To the right is our miniature sea of brown in our booth at the Portland Spring Home & Garden Show. Notice the variety of brown.

When we receive your furniture, 4-6 of us inspect it, and always end up oohing and aahing over the beauty of the wood. Then we wipe the drool marks. Mother Nature done good. Other items such as placemats, pottery, pewter, fused glass plates, or pictures are accent colors in the sea.

When ordering a table, Remember— a McKay table pad.

Crossing Bridges

We’ve come to a bridge, we don’t know how long the bridge is, yet things will be different on the other side. How many times have you heard that analogy in the past few months? Annie Harlin of Leesport, PA, past president of the PA Guild of Juried Handcrafters has crossed many bridges as an artisan. Active in the Guild, she made the most wonderful teddy bears, then crossed to hand hooked rugs/wall hangings. Even appeared with Lynette Jennings on the Discovery Channel.

We’re fortunate to have several of her original hooked wall hangings in our stores. A piece for a riser (you know what part of the stair that is?) has a patriotic theme. The “risers” don’t have to be put on a stair, but over a doorway, any section of a wall that needs something special. For each piece, she cuts the wool into strips, dyes them for the color she wants, then creates gorgeous scenes. Annie has had her own program on the Berks County, PA community cable TV channel, introducing Ned Foltz and Kim Ostramara.

We’ve known Annie for almost 20 years. Naturally when we opened our first store, we knew it was a must to have her work; a rarity outside of Pennsylvania. She has introduced us to other Guild artisans, for which we are very grateful. Along with other people who make hand hooked items, she calls herself a hooker. No further comment. Just come in and see her work. Maybe the sheep, a pussy cat, speckled bird or traditional heart will catch your eye. I would never walk on them.

The Cadillac of Redware Potters, Ned Foltz

On one of our visits to the PA Guild of Juried Handcrafters Fair in Lancaster, PA, there was a booth that was crowded all day long: Ned Foltz Pottery. Then customers started asking if we had any of his pottery. Publicity came from Southern Living, Country Living, Early American Life and Country Home magazines, public and cable television. However, there was a time he felt another lump of clay was unformed and purposeless. Then he taught art in Cocalico, PA schools and found the Lancaster County redware tradition was dying. It had a rebirth, and Ned became hooked with the traditional style.

He has dug the abundant red clay himself. He made a sgraffito plate for a former ambassador from Mexico and been invited to hang one of his Christmas ornaments at the White House. Sgraffito is accomplished by coating the redware with a slip, then scratching the semidry liquid clay to reveal the red clay beneath with its exquisite design. Some examples of this style are available in our stores.

Ned Foltz is now retired, making the pieces we have extremely collectible. Glazes are lead free. Pieces made by a couple who worked for Ned Foltz, Mayre Landis, are also available. Whimsical Easter eggs, plates decorated with rabbits, snowmen, Halloween characters, a flower pot and traditional pieces are waiting for you to add to your decorations.

Feasting is Over

Now that the major holidays are over, even if you had to celebrate after the fact, how did your table top fair with the company and anxious hungry guests? Did it receive a few dings and scratches? Solution: McKay Table Pads. They are 1/2” thick, insulated and come in different colors for the vinyl top and suede bottom to closely match the color of your table. One price for any length table, plus leaves, up to 144 inches. We have the large paper for you to make a template of your table top. Send it off and voila, life time protection. Leaf bags are also available.

The catalyzed conversion varnish finish on Valley View Oak tables is resistant to about 2 dozen liquids. Be sure to wipe spills promptly. Other things affecting any table finish are dust: wipe the surface with a cloth dampened with a non-ammonia, non-silicone furniture polish or mild detergent; fingerprints, cooking fumes, smoking residue will take away from the original luster; wipe with that dampened cloth; excessive exposure to direct sunlight, high temps & humidity can cause changes to the finish and wood itself, as explained in the last newsletter. Heat: anything that’s too hot for you to hold in your hands needs a hot pad under it. Protect your table now.

Wishes May Come True

How many of you wished for a white Christmas? Judging by the intensity of the weather we experienced in our area in December, it was quite a few, and you got your wish. That did put a wrinkle in our delivery and pick up system, but we tried. Two customers got their wish when they entered the Oregonian’s Furniture Fantasy contest and we’re bustin’ our buttons that they chose to use their winnings at our store. One customer thought it was just a marketing ploy. Your entry was not added to any mailing list, nor to try and sell something by phone. Our Kim Young was chosen Salesperson of the Year. There are at least 3 lines of dining room, bedroom, entertainment and office furniture from which to choose. Handcrafted by the Amish. Some pieces are made by Amish families after they’ve finished with their chores. When we visit them in Ohio, we can hear the portable generator providing their electricity, chug, chug, chug, chug. (Say it fast to get the effect.) Recently added to our office furniture has been River Woodworking, in northern Indiana, building computer, flat top and roll top desks from 1” solid hardwood in a variety of wood species. Paul Yoder learned the art from his father. Some of the desks have secret compartments. Any desk would complement your home or office interior. Consider brown maple: looks like cherry, has the price of oak. Then add a desk chair by F & N Chairs or Buckeye Rockers. It was our wish to have these beautiful items on our floor to show some of the finest furniture made in the USA

Scherenschnitte

No, you didn’t sneeze while trying to pronounce this German word meaning paper cutting. Its origins are in China, 25 AD to 221 AD. Paper was an expensive luxury and paper cutting was highly prized by Chinese royalty. Soon it made its way over the Silk Road to Europe. Today paper cutting is not practiced widely in Germany, except in Canton Bern, but remains popular in Switzerland and other countries. Each of our stores has an example of scherenschnitte featuring one of five PA Guild member artists: Jupi Das, of Harrisburg, PA whose work displays an oriental touch; Sandra Gilpin producing colored scherenschnitte, Marilyn Diener with a Polish style; Marie Helene Grabman, internationally known and featured in the magazine German Life, Feb/March 2009; and Neil Haring of Womelsdorf, PA who was commissioned to produce a piece for Liza Minelli’s last wedding. Traditional artists used heavy scissors; today there is a variety of specialty scissors. Of the artists whose work we display, only Neil Haring uses a knife. The others use fine scissors; Marie Helen Grabman uses fine surgical scissors, to cut from one piece of paper. The large cutting above the mantel in Aurora was displayed in the Detroit, MI Museum of Art before coming to our store. She has won numerous art awards, as has Neil Haring. Themes of the art can be elaborations of nature, folk life, specific celebrations, hearts or flowers.

To make your choice of the lacy designs, you might need to visit each of our stores before making a selection to decorate your home. It’s more than the snowflakes you made in the second grade.

Peggy Karr Retires Patterns

Peggy Karr Glass is the finest fused enameled glass for the table and home, handmade in the USA since 1987. She isn’t retired, but several of her patterns are now retired. Although, different pieces are still available in our stores waiting to be added to your collection, or ready to start a collection. My favorite is St. Nick, the crescent shaped head on a round 11” plate. Daffodils is a close second with bright yellow heralding the start of spring. The 14” platter is sure to put a spark in your home décor. Some seasonal patterns for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, patriotic holidays, Halloween, and Christmas are retired but still in stock in our stores. The above picture shows, left to right, Pastel Tulips, Rainbow Iris and Floral Branch. Hang in your window to catch the sun, use to serve baked treats, display on a shelf or table . Dishwasher safe and microwave safe for warming, not cooking. Your friends will be jealous!

An Amish Maze

Traveling in Holmes County Ohio can be both amazing and a maze.

The pristine beauty of the well kept farms, the horse drawn plows, the fields of corn and the clip-clop of a buggy on the road is both peaceful and amazing. But if you’re looking for a builder, quilter or bed & breakfast location, it can be a maze.

The roads and signs aren’t freeway style. A little white sign with black letters may be seen or, perhaps the road number is on a white stake, slightly tilted from buggy or car traveling too close…hard to read.

But if you’re not in a hurry and take your time, it can be rewarding: both the simplicity and peacefulness of it all. And you will find that location you were looking for. This is how Carol and Jay travel when visiting their friends in Holmes County.

Catch a glimpse of this magic on our website: www.amishwbf.com; or take a look at one of our links about the Amish…you too will be amazed.