Back-to-school means a lot of different things to different people. For some, it means they’re heading off to university in another city, perhaps for the first time, or after a summer at home. Others might still live at home, and back-to-school simply means that it’s time to hit the books once again. Others may be heading back to university or college after many years away from it, whether to further their education or to switch careers. And then there are the high school students and teachers, for whom “back-to-school” means a return to the ordinary school.

Whatever it means to you, there’s one constant it all of the above: you need space to study and concentrate. For those of us who’ve been out of school for some time, it can be difficult to remember just how demanding those courses and books can be – having a dedicated space all your own, where you can buckle down and work, is of key importance, and there’s no better way to create a serious, sophisticated work atmosphere than with solid wood furniture in your room or study. With that in mind, let’s look at a few back-to-school furniture pieces to help you get through the school year.

Desks

What a great dining room table is to spending time with family, the desk is to work. It is the epicentre of work, a place where you can localize your focus. The best desks share three important characteristics: they’re beautiful, they’re durable and they’re functional. For something sturdy and minimalist, check out our Parkdale Desk, which mixes solid wood and powder-coated metal. Or for some something more classical (like something you might find in an Ivy League office), take a look at our Downton Executive Desk, with its fine rope trim, knobs and sculpted feet.

Coffee Tables

Whether you live at home or on campus, you want a versatile piece of furniture like a coffee table, for stacking books, holding coffee (that one’s obvious!) or kicking up your feet at the end of a tough day. If you want something industrial and rustic, our reclaimed wood coffee table will definitely do the trick.

Bookcases

It’s a veritable mountain of books when you’re in school – more books than you’ll know what to do with. That’s why you need a good bookcase, one that’s a decent size and is solidly constructed (because those things can get heavy). Our Barrister’s Bookcase, as the name suggests, is modeled after the kind of bookcase you might find at a traditional legal office, with flip up doors on each shelf to protect your books from dust. For something a little more modern, with clean, parallel lines, try our Tranquil Bookcases.

A Classier Living Area

Don’t stop at the study area either – since you’re going to be living there the entire year (if not longer) take the time to improve your dining and living spaces as well. We offer handcrafted dining tables in Toronto and across the GTA that can be delivered to you with our White Glove Delivery Service. Just that simple improvement in living condition – eating off a solid wood table rather than a TV tray – can make all the difference. And once school is over, you’ve got a piece of furniture you can take with you wherever you go, that will last a lifetime.

This coming school year, make your study space the best it can possibly be. Create a quality, sophisticated space where you can focus on gaining knowledge and bettering yourself. We know that the school year is still a little ways off (and it’s the last thing you probably want to think about) but call us now about preparing your new desk, coffee table or bookcase.

Breakfast is reportedly the most important meal of the day, and yet we call the table a “dinner table”? It hardly seems fair! Well, for all those people out there waiting for breakfast to get its fair shake, to have its day in the sun, your wait might be over. A breakfast nook is the perfect addition to any home – a little niche set aside as part of the dining room or kitchen that serves the sole purpose of making your mornings as cozy and comfortable as possible.

Even homes that weren’t constructed with nooks as part of the layout can still get the benefits of creating a cozy breakfast nook. All you have to do is dedicate a corner of one of the rooms – dining room, kitchen, even family room – to creating a cozy space, preferably a corner that gets some natural sunlight. The name of the game here is to get as cozy as possible, after all, this is where you’re going to be drinking a leisurely coffee each morning as you read the paper (or more realistically your iPad!). To achieve this level of comfort, choose elemental components like plants, flowers and wicker, with solid wood furniture at the centre of it.

The first thing to do is obviously to section off a space for your breakfast nook. As mentioned, light should be a consideration, as should seclusion; you don’t want your breakfast nook in a part of the house that sees a lot of noisy foot traffic, as the point is tranquility. Once you’ve chosen a space, the next step is to choose a table and chairs.

Again, the aim here is to evoke a slower pace and an elemental feeling. For this, you might go with the reclaimed wood table we offer, which makes a bold statement while remaining rustic and cozy. You might also want to choose something round, around which the family can closely congregate, like our Western Millsawn Round Table. Something like the Edward Chair or Pottery Chair we offer would do nicely for your seating: something simple and straightforward.

Next, you’ll want to add some decoration. We like the idea of keeping it fairly simple, with some fresh flowers in the middle of the table as well as a couple dramatic plants surrounding. If you wanted to add some colour, you could do so in the form of a table runner, napkins or a bowl of fresh fruit on the table.

As for decorations, think about your morning routine. An antique coffee pot (or modern Bodum) could provide decoration while also being functional, and a newspaper hanger (either mounted or on the ground) could do the same. A buffet hutch nearby could hold your plates, cutlery, teapots and whatever else you might need for the morning. Choose your light fixtures according to the style that you’ve chosen; for instance, if going for a farmhouse style, with a reclaimed solid wood dining table and copper pots on the wall, try hanging some antique bulbs. The possibilities here are endless. Take a look at this article of breakfast nook lighting (yes, that’s a real article someone wrote) for inspiration.

If you’re like most people, you need a slow, comfortable way to wake up. No one wants to go from sleeping peacefully to running around busily, so these transitional rituals are very important. Set up your breakfast nook for maximum cozy-ness with solid wood furniture, fresh plants and flowers, and functional décor.

If you’ve ever brought a new car home, only to be overly protective of the interior, to the point where you won’t let anyone near it who’s even the least bit dirty, then you’ll understand the feeling. We like to take care of our investments. When you order a quality piece of solid wood furniture from Woodcraft you want to make sure that it’s treated with the care it deserves, and that it lasts a long time. After all, with proper care, a piece of solid wood furniture can be passed down through generations.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. Furniture is, above all, supposed to be functional, and just like that example of a car interior, it’s supposed to be used by friends and family. With that in mind, here’s how you can use your new furniture while still ensuring that it’s well taken care of – these are five tips from the experts on maintaining solid wood furniture.

Dry After Wiping

Don’t be afraid of wiping your surfaces down with a damp towel; that can often be the most effective way to remove all the dust, dirt and stuck on stuff that custom wood furniture can accumulate. Just be sure to use a soft cloth and follow the grain pattern to avoid streaks. Also, right after you’re finished wiping with a damp cloth, go in and dry it off with another soft cloth. If it’s just dust that’s collected in the surface, you won’t even need the damp cloth – just the soft, dry cloth should suffice.

Avoid Sunlight

If you’ve positioned your furniture to be near a window, keep the blinds or curtains drawn shut when not at home, in an attempt to limit the furniture’s exposure to direct sunlight. Sunlight has the tendency to make wood look faded over time. While there are UV resistant coatings that can help protect your furniture, they merely slow down the sun’s fading effect on the wood. And they don’t tackle the other issue the sun poses, namely that its heat can have a drying effect on wood, which might cause cracking.

Break Out The Coasters

Having people over? Break out those coasters, doilies, mitts, mats and whatever else you need to use to create a buffer between hot or cold surfaces and your solid wood dining table – your guests will understand. It’s not only that the different temperatures can be hard on the wood, but sliding a glass around or emphatically setting a teapot down on a bare wood surface can cause minor damage.

Avoid Those Aerosol Polishers

Avoid silicone-based furniture polishers like Pledge, since they can wreak havoc on the varnish and build up on the furniture’s surface. Instead, consult this article for what polish to use, and use the polish sparingly.

Manage The Humidity

We recommend trying to keep the humidity between 40 and 45 degrees in your home, which can be reliably achieved with the help of a humidifier/dehumidifier. With our notoriously dry winters and our notoriously humid summers, these appliances can be a godsend. Just make sure to store your table leaves somewhere that’s similar in humidity. If you store your leaves in a damp basement, with your table in a humidity-controlled environment, after a while they might look wonky together.

Other than those five tips, common sense should get you the rest of the way. Don’t bang your furniture around too much, and if you spill something, clean it up. The solid wood furniture we craft has the potential to be around for a number of lifetimes, as a family heirloom, with only a little bit of care and attention.

As Canadians, we have precious few ways to show our national pride. Sure, we can root for the Canadian hockey team at the Winter Olympics every four years, or proudly support local businesses (like ours, of course!), but the one day of the year that’s reliably patriotic is Canada Day. We don’t do it with as much bravado as our neighbours to the south, mind you, but we love Canada Day as a way for friends and communities to come together and celebrate our shared space.

As such, we as Canadians reserve the right every year to throw a great party. Hosting a party can be lots of fun, but it can also be a bit stressful, especially when you’re aiming to impress your guests with your home and décor. At Woodcraft, we can tell you that the best foundation for any party – but especially a party that celebrates Canada – is going to include solid wood furniture made from Canadian craftspeople. Not only does it evoke the old lumberjack image of the Canadian olden days, but it supports local business and local lumber. But solid wood furniture – here are some other ways to throw the ultimate Canada Day Party this July 1^st.

Decorations

Of course, red and white are the name of the game here. Whether you go with cross-hatching red and white streamers, red and white trays for hors d’oeuvres or red and white matching towels in the washroom, this added flair really drives home the theme.

Also – and we’re not saying this solely because we work with wood – wood makes a great Canadian décor motif, because, as mentioned, it conveys a sense of the great wild outdoors. If you can find some festive foliage, like maple leaves (they’ll be green in the summer), absolutely use them, to decorate counter tops, tables, drink trays, etc.

Food

We’ve got two beautiful words for you: poutine bar. That’s right, you can offer your guests a bowl of plain fries and then line up all the fixings for them to customize their poutine. Go for the classics, of course – cheese curds and gravy – and then branch out with things like, bacon, green onion, mushrooms, etc. Whatever works with potatoes will work with poutine.

In addition to this very stereotypical offering, July 1^st is a great time to break out the BBQ. The weather is hot enough that your guests will want to be outside anyways, and grilling for a crowd takes the headache out of preparing food in the kitchen. It ends up being less messy.

Table Settings

Picture this: on top of a beautiful, handcrafted reclaimed wood kitchen table you’ve placed maple leaves, pine cones, a burlap runner and some red and white candles. If that doesn’t scream “Canadian rustic”, we don’t know what does.  For stuff like this, you can’t go wrong with Pinterest, which in this case has a load of great ideas for Canada Day table settings.

Games

To really keep the theme going, you could host your own Canada Day trivia game, with prizes for the winners. Here are 150 questions about Canada – corresponding to last year’s Canada 150 celebrations – that you can use as part of your trivia. As a prize, you could give away red and white candy, chocolate loonies, or even gift certificates to local businesses. Just gather everyone around your wood table and dole out the questions Jeopardy-style, with the first person to buzz in getting a chance to answer.

Canada Day is all about having fun with friends, neighbours and family, so break out the red and white décor, fry up some Quebec style fries, deck your reclaimed wood table out in Canadian settings and keep the games going all night. Here’s to you, Canada!

Design trends tend to come and go like the wind, but every once and a while you get a style that sticks around. That’s certainly the case with reclaimed wood, which started as a design trend born out of the DIY movement, where people would take wood repurposed from industrial uses and made it into something beautiful and newly functional. The wood can be salvaged from a number of things – barns, warehouses, old homes, etc. – and then made into all sorts of different pieces. And people love it. Let’s look at five reasons why furniture lovers are smitten with reclaimed wood (and why you could be too!).

It Adds Character

We should stipulate here that we think all Woodcraft furniture pieces add character in their own way, but there’s something undeniably unique about reclaimed wood. Its time-sculpted roughness, its heartiness: these things make it eccentric and interesting. To understand the appeal of reclaimed wood, perhaps it’s best to mention wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic notion of accepting transience and imperfection; this notion holds that objects become more beautiful as they age and begin to show signs of time passing. It’s hard to disagree, especially when you see how a reclaimed wood coffee table ties a room together!

It’s Eco-Friendly

Rather than chopping down a new tree, reclaimed wood relies on already used lumber. You probably remember the three R’s from grade school – reduce, reuse, recycle. May we suggest a fourth R: Reclaimed? If you want a new dining table, but want to leave as little a carbon footprint as possible, a reclaimed wood dining room table solves that dilemma handily, and as an added bonus you get a beautifully unique table.

It Has Time-Tested Durability

The fact that this wood has lasted this long should tell you all you need to know about its durability. Think of wood as following a kind of Darwinian survival of the fittest – this wood has stood the test of time precisely because of its strength and fortitude. That means that even after generations of use in its new form, you’ll be able to pass it down as a family heirloom.

It’s A Talking Point

When you have guests over, they are going to want to comment on your home, so give them something to praise with a reclaimed wood table. Such is reclaimed wood’s uniqueness and character that people are immediately drawn to it, and will ask you all sorts of questions, including where they can buy one just like. You can refer them to Woodcraft, but you might want to warn them that they can’t have one exactly like yours.

It Preserves A Bit Of History

Finally, for those history buffs out there, how would you like to sit down for dinner at a wooden table that’s older than you? It’s the same principle as buying antique furniture: introducing old and used wood into your home adds depth and a link to history. You won’t always know exactly where the wood came from, but it can be fun to speculate.

If you’re in the market for a new dining table or coffee table, and want something that’s unique, character-rich, eco-friendly and historically interesting, check out our reclaimed wood furniture pieces. At Woodcraft, we treat this material with the love and care it deserves, and offer up handcrafted furniture that’s both beautiful and functional. The design world is certainly smitten with reclaimed wood – you can be too!

Basements too often go underutilized, left to languish as the underbelly of the house, but they have just as much potential as any other space. The idea behind a recreation room is pretty simple: create a space away from the everyday foot traffic of the home that’s dedicated to games and entertainment. It’s not something you’d have, for instance, in your main foyer, as that would look odd, but squared away downstairs in the basement, the rec room is a perfect solace and sanctuary after a long day.

Rec rooms are very often warm and inviting – one of the reasons Woodcraft solid wood furniture fits so well in a rec room – and often evoke a kind of old fashioned aesthetic, for instance with an antique pool table or 1950s beer signs. Here we’ve compiled four ways that you can achieve this aesthetic – four ways you can create the ultimate rec room.

Compartmentalize The Fun

What we mean by this is that it’s in your best interest to try and section off different games and activities. For instance, you don’t want the TV directly behind the pool table, or the bar rubbing up against the foosball table. Give every piece of entertainment its proper space, dividing up the room (or rooms) according to activities. That way, no pool players will get in the way of someone trying to watch TV, and no stray elbows from the foosball table will knock a glass off the bar.

Deck It Out In Wood

Nothing says bespoke and timeless like custom wood furniture and a rec room is going to look awesome with a few choice pieces. Put a reclaimed wood coffee table in there to drive home the old-fashioned, character-rich look of the room, and line one of the walls with an entertainment unit, like our Turnbuckle TV Unit or Modo Console w/ Hutch. The nice thing about solid wood in a basement is that it does a wonderful job evoking a pool hall or old-fashioned inn, adding layers of warmth and comfort.

Add Some Old-Fashioned Flair

You are limited only by your imagination with this one. Our advice would be visit a flea market, like the Toronto Weston Flea Market, or the Sunday Antique Market at St. Lawrence Market, and search for anything that strikes your fancy. Old Guinness posters, old bar serving trays, baseball arcade games from the 60s, a light-up Coors sign… the list is endless. Just pick a design idea and fly with it.

Paint For Warmth

To match the wooden tables and old-fashioned curios, paint your rec room to give it a warm, welcoming vibe. Choose earthy colours that match the existing décor. Since it’s in a basement, be sure to follow proper procedures for painting a rec room, like creating proper ventilation through fans or open windows, and preparing the room with sheeting or tarps to avoid damaging the room.

Once you’re all finished, you can finally relax. Invite friends over, flip on the TV, have a friendly game of pool and enjoy some cool drinks to celebrate all your hard work. It’s important to have a space in the house that is purely recreational, somewhere you can go to unwind and not worry about life outside. With these four simple steps, you can create the ultimate, old-fashioned rec room, the perfect place for any game night or get together. Cheers!

There are a plethora of reasons that people usually wait until this time of year to move. For some, this time of year marks the formal end of the school year, and therefore a perfect opportunity to divert one’s attention on a new place. For others, it’s more about the warm weather: the prospect of having to move homes amid the biting winter winds is enough to make them wait. And then there are some people who just happen to find that perfect place this time of year, a pure and true instance of serendipity.

Whatever the reason, moving is exciting because it is the ultimate way to shake things up. You know that feeling when you wake up that first morning in a new place – you feel so alive and excited. Changing your surroundings can be a great way to feel fresh, and when you move places it can be a wonderful opportunity to try new things with décor. You might never find a better time to finally say goodbye to that chewed up old particleboard bookcase and say hello to a Woodcraft solid wood bookcase in your choice of wood and stain.

Life has a way of chugging along at a great pace, and it can be easy to say, “Oh, I’ll get around to replacing this table later”, or, “Our room is bugging me, but I can’t be bothered to redecorate right now”. Often, in order to get by day to day, we have to put certain home matters on the backburner. But that all changes when you move. Moving is all about focusing on your home, so it’s the perfect opportunity to work from the ground up on creating the home you’ve always wanted. Be bold and try something different.

One way of shaking things up in advance of the big moving day is to consider furniture that is a little out of the ordinary. A type of furniture that we’re absolutely loving making here at Woodcraft is reclaimed wood furniture, essentially pieces that we make from repurposed industrial wood. The end products, whether reclaimed wood tables or coffee tables, just look so textured and multi-dimensional, exuding a sense of character that is completely unique. They’re definitely a conversation starter. It can be difficult to take the plunge and replace your current table – we totally understand – but that’s why moving should be viewed as an opportunity for change.

Another wonderful way to kick-start your life in a new home would be to ensure that each room coheres. Homes are often a mish-mash of accumulated furniture, built over time. There’s a coffee table you got from your wedding, a couch you found on sale, a bed that you bought when you were a little strapped for cash. The effect that gives is a house that’s been developed piecemeal rather than with a single vision in mind. For this, we recommend taking a look at our sets. Our bedroom sets and office collections are a great way to tie a room together, and since you get to choose your stain colour and wood type, you can have a great amount of creative say in how those rooms will look. If you want examples of how a certain set might look in a certain stain, or if you just have general questions, give us a call anytime and we’d be happy to help.

Above we said that there’s no better feeling than waking up in a new home that first morning, but maybe it’s better to qualify that: there’s no better feeling than waking up in a new place that looks exactly the way you’ve always wanted it to. Now that’s a wonderful feeling.

With Father’s Day right around the corner, now’s the perfect time to ponder what gift to give to the man who raised you. Sure, you could go the brunch route, or buy him a card and be done with it, but where’s the love in that? This Father’s Day, go for something he can both admire and use, something burly and elegant; Woodcraft solid wood furniture makes the perfect gift for any dad. Here we’ve listed five “types” of dad, and the perfect piece of furniture to get them for Father’s Day.

For The Sports Fan

Whether it’s the Jays, Leafs, Raptors, Argos or any other team that your dad follows, sports just look better when they’re imbedded in a big, beautifully constructed entertainment unit. With ample room and shelving for a sound system, speakers, movie collection, etc., our entertainment units are perfect for the dad who likes to sit back at the end of a long day, grab the remote and take in the TV. Check out our Brent, Modo, Glenn or Ottawa Valley cabinets with hutches, each with its own specific style and charm.

For The Bookworm

For the dad who has more books than he knows what to do with, the only Father’s Day gift that makes sense would be a bookcase, one worthy of his collection. Depending on the kind of guy he is, you could either go with something like the Downton book case – a regal but straightforward piece, accented by rope trim and detailed knobs – or something like our Deluxe Bookcase w/ Bevelled Glass Door, which has a more rustic feel. For something more modern and a little less conventional, check out our Framework Bookcase, a minimalist piece with a striking, maze-like design.

For The Hard Worker

Then there’s the dad who lives to work. You can normally find him in his study, plugging away at one task or another, surrounded by paperwork. When you spend that much time at a desk, you want to know that the desk is really good. You want to walk into your study or office every day and admire the custom handmade wood furniture in front of you. From the simple, sophisticated design of our New Yorker Desk, to the sleek French contemporary style of our Prince Charles Executive Desk, or the uber-minimalist lines on our Waterfall Desk, there’s a type of desk for every hardworking dad out there.

For The Foodie

Some dads get their joie de vivre from sitting around the dinner table, in front of a plate of good food and a glass of something delicious. For the foodie in the family, what could be a better Father’s Day gift than cooking up a luxurious meal and serving it to him on an immaculate new table? We make reclaimed wood tables for that rustic look, or you can go with something more classic like a glass-top table. The choice is entirely yours. At Woodcraft, we’re proud of the variety our collection of dining room tables has.

For The Saturday Morning Sleep-In

Finally, we come to the dad who just wants to sleep in a little – the dad for whom heaven is being able to unplug the alarm clock and rest undisturbed. For the comfort-seeker of the house, we have some seriously impressive beds on offer, like our Waterfall Live Edge Bed, Hampton Bed or Dunbar Bed (plus a number of other fantastic options).

Solid wood furniture makes an incredible Father’s Day gift for any type of dad. Stop by one of our showrooms to peruse different styles of furniture and be sure to check out our current promotions on the website. Solid wood for a solid dad – Happy Father’s Day!

Spring Cleaning can only do so much. At a certain point, you have to look around yourself and ask whether your space is being used neatly and efficiently. If you’re in a one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Toronto, the task becomes trickier (though totally not impossible), but even people with sprawling suburban houses have to deal with clutter. It is a universal annoyance, one born out of our desire to have things we don’t necessarily need, but there are ways that you can make you’re home feel less cluttered, regardless of size, that don’t necessarily involve throwing away everything.

The first way to go about making a space feel less cluttered is by choosing certain furniture with clean lines and a minimal design. That’s not to say every piece of furniture ought to be minimal. Many of our Woodcraft solid wood furniture pieces are large, and not necessarily minimal in design, and you can absolutely make them work in even a small home (more on that below). But for pieces at the center of a room, like coffee tables and dining tables, you do want minimal designs. Our Malmö Glass Dining Table is a great place to start when thinking about creating a less cluttered home, as the glass top gives the illusion of an open space – just make sure to keep the top clear of items and debris!

Also, wherever possible, choose furniture that pulls double duty as storage. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily apply to dining tables, but consider getting a buffet hutch, an entertainment unit, or an elegant new bookcase to contain and compartmentalize some of the clutter in your home. It’s better to consume the space in your home with a closed-drawer, closed-door piece of furniture containing clutter, than have the clutter strewn about in random places. Once the clutter is neatly tucked away in drawers and on shelves, it can’t really be called clutter anymore, can it?

With big furniture items, the rule of thumb is to stick them around the perimeter of a room, away from any room entrances. The thinking here is that if you push them against the wall, they become a feature of the architecture of the room, rather than an item the room contains. And keeping large furniture away from the entrances improves the flow of a home, as well as keeps an unobstructed sightline of the room when entering. If you’re on the market for effective furniture that will provide storage and sophistication, for a great price, check out our latest promotions on our website.

To further promote spaciousness, open those widows and draw the blinds – allow a view of outside to become a feature of the room, and let that lovely natural light in. A lot of people also swear by mirrors, which have long been used to trick the eye into thinking a space is larger (and therefore, they contend, less cluttered), but if all you’re mirroring is a cluttered room, then you’re just doubling the clutter, aren’t you?

At a certain point, then, it’s wise to let go of a few things. If the storage room in your closets and furniture is starting to get stuffed to the brim, unfortunately it is time to start paring down. Take a day to assess everything – ask whether you need to keep those old cloth napkins, that encyclopaedia collection no one uses (because phones), or that stack of paperwork from a job four years ago. You’d be surprised, once you get started, how easy it is to toss things out!

You don’t have to have access to rooms upon rooms of free space in order to make a home feel less cluttered. With some wise furniture choices, clever placement, open windows and a little bit of cleaning, your home will feel open and efficient.