WHO WE ARE:
(Waterfall Table)
We are Robert Dobie and Susan Folk Dobie, a Mom and Pop (well, more like a Grammy and Grandpapa) home business near Raleigh, NC. All of our live edge items are one-of-a-kind, handmade by us, and we use primarily local urban salvaged wood. We are actively involved in the entire process including cutting the trees and assisting in milling them into slabs. From that point on we do everything by ourselves. We air dry the slabs for at least a year, then finish curing them in our onsite kiln, cut them into mostly charcuterie and small table sized pieces, create the designs and do all the final finishing. All of our works that are meant to have any contact with food are made using food-safe products and finishes.
WHAT WE MAKE:
Charcuterie Boards
*Sliced Cookie* Tables
Charcuterie Boards
We make various sizes of charcuterie boards, cutting boards and cheese boards, both with and without epoxy rivers running through them. We have a huge inventory of pigment color choices!
Benches
*Sliced Cookie* Tables
Charcuterie Boards
We make benches for inside use, of various heights, widths and lengths.
*Sliced Cookie* Tables
*Sliced Cookie* Tables
*Sliced Cookie* Tables
We make a wide variety of side tables, coffee tables and sofa tables, with and without color epoxy rivers. We also accept custom orders for full sized tables up to 8 feet long. Tables made from slices of wood (like pictured above), are not cut for rivers (though there may be some epoxy filled inclusions) and show off the live edge surrounding the entire piece.
Sensible Susans
Nested Catering Sets
Sensible Susans
You may call them Sensible Susans, Smart Susans or even Spinning Susans, just please don't call them Lazy Susans.
Shelves
Nested Catering Sets
Sensible Susans
We take custom orders for floating shelves. We also have a few premade wall hanging shelves
Nested Catering Sets
Nested Catering Sets
Nested Catering Sets
We make custom nested catering sets, with or without epoxy rivers.
Waterfall tables without rivers:
We can make them as sets or singles, to your specifications.
Waterfall tables and desks with rivers:
We can make them as sets or singles, to your specifications.
Waterfall end tables with epoxy and a drawer:
We can make them as sets or singles, to your specifications.
Custom Tables up to 8' Long
Our Inspiration
Our Craftsmanship
Our Craftsmanship
At Rivers in Wood, we're inspired by the natural beauty of wood and the creativity of our clients. We believe that every piece of furniture should be a reflection of its owner's personality and style. Whether it's a custom ordered dining room table, end table or desk, we work closely with our clients to bring their vision to life.
Our Craftsmanship
Our Craftsmanship
Our Craftsmanship
We're committed to creating furniture that is not only beautiful but also built to last. From joinery to finishing, every step of the process is done with the utmost attention to detail and meant to last for many, many generations of enjoyment.
Our Materials
Our Craftsmanship
Our Materials
We believe the quality of materials is just as important as the craftsmanship. That's why we work with the highest quality urban salvage, sustainably sourced woods, carefully selecting each slab for its unique character & beauty. We don't use stains, varnish, urethane or anything else that alters the color of the wood. With slabs of wood
We believe the quality of materials is just as important as the craftsmanship. That's why we work with the highest quality urban salvage, sustainably sourced woods, carefully selecting each slab for its unique character & beauty. We don't use stains, varnish, urethane or anything else that alters the color of the wood. With slabs of wood like those used for the table here, you just can't improve on nature!
Photo Gallery (a few examples of our past and present works)
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What IS "live edge" wood?
Live edge is the layer of a tree directly under the bark. It's lighter in color than the middle of the tree and varies in size. Our works that don't have rivers of color epoxy are the natural vertical slice of wood with the live edge on the outer edges as nature made it. With the river pieces, we decide whether to cut through the middle area of the board following the natural grain and pour the river directly between those two pieces, or to turn the live edge parts to the inside, with the plain cut edge on the outside. Both are beautiful. Sometimes it's hard to decide. Sometimes we make "cookie" slab tables. That's when the piece of wood is a horizontal slice of the tree and the live edge is the outer surround.
Typical inventory ready to pack for a festival!
At Rivers in Wood, no two pieces are ever the same. We pride ourselves on creating the best possible quality pieces and don't put anything up for sale until it reaches that standard. We pay close attention to detail every step of the way. Our works are meant to be enjoyed and used by many generations to come.
In addition to *functional art* we also craft the occasional beautiful art piece that simply shouts "Look at me!* and is made solely to be admired on the wall or on its own stand----art for the sake of art.
STEP BY STEP
THE TREES: We never cut trees down just to use for our business. We use trees that are being cut down because they've been damaged by storms. Or we may get a call from someone who wants a tree cut because they are tired of running over walnuts while cutting their grass. In other words, wood that would otherwise end up in the landfill or a burn pile. However we source it, we assist the tree cutte
MILLING: At that point we call in a portable sawmill. We are physically involved in helping to get the logs on and off of the sawmill to cut it into slabs. If for any reason the landowner doesn't want us to do this onsite we take the logs home and have the portable sawmill come to our place to slab the logs.
DRY AND CURE: Next the slabs are air dried for at least a year. Some slabs start out green and/or thick enough that they need to be air dried for closer to two years!
THE KILN: Okay, it doesn't look like much, but it is ours and it's primarily solar powered, assisted at times by electric and propane heaters mostly in the worst of the winter months. It's designed to hold 800 board feet. This is where any insects that have ever taken up residence in the wood go to die. Depending on the slabs, the wood is further dried here for about 4 to 8 weeks to insure it
CUTS: Once the slabs are fully dry and ready to be worked the decision process kicks in. How many from this slab? How long for each piece? Tables, floating shelves, art or charcuterie boards? Live edge sides in or out? Waterfall pieces? Bed headboard? With or without a color river? A LOT of decisions get made at this point before the saw hits the wood.
Next the newly cut pieces are then prepped for pouring epoxy rivers.
After a thorough cleaning, the pieces enter our temperature controlled clean pour room. OK that sounds a little fancy. It's really a spare room (shhh it's really the kid's old bedroom) in our home dedicated to this step. It's kept dust (& dog fur) free, has an air purifier & remains sealed except when we go in & out. The room is well lit & also stores our epoxy resin & pigment choices. We can pour
THE POUR (the sticky part): After sealing off all of the inclusions & rivers, the INTENSE math begins. 24 hour food-safe epoxy is VERY EXPENSIVE. We don't want to waste ANY. If a river isn't properly sealed before pouring the entire river can leak out. If we miscalculate & have several ounces left over after a pour, that's wasted epoxy. Calculating how much to mix will always be challenging.
CREATING ART: After mixing the clear epoxy resin, it's broken into small batches to add color. We have about 250 pigment colors including metallic, glow in the dark, neon, pearlescent & chameleon color-shift. After deciding on a pattern, over the next few hours the rivers are poured. Then we wait. And wait. For the "right" time to create our designs using a wide variety of tools and techniques.
FINISH PREP
The pieces are now ready to be planed and sanded to a smooth finish
RIVERS IN WOOD BRANDING
We recently started burning a brand into our new pieces.
OILING
The finished piece now receives at least two coats of a food-safe, oil wax finish.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Next we take a LOT of pictures of each piece to find the best one. Pictures of pieces made with color shift and chameleon pigments are especially challenging; its very difficult to do justice to a river that changes color depending on the angle. The best photos are kept for our inventory records.
Inventory
We tag each piece with our four part price tag that includes our contact information, the inventory number for our sales records, price, and care instructions.
Festival Time!
We load it all up, hook up the vintage camper (if the show is out of town) and head out to festivals and markets. For a list of upcoming places where we'll have a booth, click on the "events" tab at the top of the page!
Obligatory Dog Tax:
Creative Muses
You made it all the way to the end of our very first website and you deserve a reward! They would play their ukuleles for you and sing you a happy song if only they could...