by Juanita | Aug 27, 2021 | 50th anniversary, Ava Lee's History Corner, customer experience, Office, Rocking Chairs
Ready to make that investment in custom wood furniture for your home?
Discover all the ways to enjoy custom wood furniture in your home.
I know you are probably so used to particle board shelves & chairs with rungs that come unglued. If you are finding yourself so frustrated with furniture like that falling apart, it is probably time for you to invest in your own custom wood furniture. Believe it or not, you can furnish every room in your home with a custom piece. To be honest, after over 50+ years of handcrafted custom woodworking, we have learned a thing or two about making gorgeous handcrafted custom wood furniture for your home that you can enjoy for generations. Read on to discover the perfect pieces for each room.
Solid Wood Kitchen Tables
Let’s start in your kitchen, the heart of your home. Yes, for many of the families we have served, they live their lives, create memories, share meals, play games, work together all on their kitchen tables. At some point, you will realize the need for a table that can withstand all the tough love from children, friends, family, boyfriends & girlfriends, in-laws, & even grandchildren. Maybe even a high chair that can hold onto your wiggly, round baby, keeping them secure & comfortable. The Keefer family wanted a table for the heart of their home, a table which was eventually passed on to their granddaughter to enjoy. Nothing can compete with the beauty of the natural grain of a solid wood table. In fact, black walnut blend is a popular choice for our tables.
Solid Wood Dining Room Furniture
Moving out to the dining room, you need an excellent table & chairs set to host holiday gatherings & family parties where everyone is comfortable & gathered together. Of course, you have many options here. This is where our extension tables really shine. Choose how large your table needs to be or how many seats you wish to accommodate. Consider whether you wish to use chairs or benches for your table.
Solid Wood Living Room Furniture
Now, after a delicious meal, move your guests into the living room where the babies can play on the floor & the adults can share stories & memories. In fact, our business started from a piece of living room furniture. It’s true! George, our beloved founder, started our woodworking business in 1972 when he created the first non-tipping rocking chair. Over the years, we have delivered so many rocking chairs & other comfortable chairs & benches to our customers, like Heather & Craig who purchased their first non-tipping rocking chair when they discovered their first baby was on the way. “Nobody has a finish like George’s. It’s held up all these 45 years,” Heather shared with us. In fact, after such an excellent experience with their non-tipping rocking chair, Heather & Craig came back to George’s Furniture many times & walked away with a new purchase each time: a vanity bench for Heather’s spinning wheel, a custom designed piece for the space between their fireplace & wall, & 2 child-sized table & chair sets for their grandchildren.
We have also crafted all types of solid entertainment centers over the years too. In fact, many people come to us when their antique furniture that they thought was high-quality actually starts falling apart. This is such a common problem when you don’t start with high-quality wood at the beginning & a craftsman who knows how to treat the wood well. Each entertainment center is designed to your component measurements and desired arrangement.
Solid Wood Office Furniture
Let’s take a quick peek into your study too. This is where you would really enjoy a custom solid wood bookcase & a beautiful black walnut desk & conference table. Fortunately, we have experience with all sizes of desks & tables. In fact, the Pentagon once ordered an expandable office conference table handcrafted by our woodworkers. Yes, the local Lancaster paper even wrote a story about it! Maybe your home office is more like Stephen & Dora’s space. After exhausting hours & days perusing furniture stores locally & online, they ultimately found what they needed here at George’s Furniture: a conference table, executive desk & credenza.
Solid Wood Bedroom Suite
Now, a full home tour would not be complete without viewing the master suite. You know that popular statistic claims that you spend ⅓ of your life asleep in bed? That statistic alone seems like a good enough reason to invest in a beautiful bed frame that can provide night upon night of peaceful slumber. Many of our customers also appreciate the fact that they can custom design a headboard & bed frame that include storage space as well. Michael & Linda recently thanked us for their solid wood bedroom furniture with these kind words, “The product you make results from treating a natural product with the skill held only by true craftsmen.”
When you are first considering custom wood furniture for your home, come visit us! We love giving tours of our showroom & wood shop where you can observe each step of the furniture-making process. Then, once your custom wood pieces are complete, we are happy to provide you with excellent service & delivery.
To help you on your journey to enjoying custom solid wood furniture that will last generations, we made this handy guide to tell if your furniture is high-quality so you can learn what to avoid in your furniture shopping.
by Juanita | Jul 15, 2021 | Accessories, customer experience, George's Furniture, Gifts, Office, Rocking Chairs
Custom Wood Furniture American Made And Worth Your Money
You might wonder if custom wood furniture is worth the investment. It is true that it can come with a hefty price tag but you have so much more freedom & flexibility to create a unique piece to meet your needs. Plus, you can observe the entire creation process right in our wood shop where we prepare the Pennsylvania lumber, move it through the sawing & planing process, & handcraft your piece to your exact specifications.
We have used this time-tested process for the last 50 years for all the pieces you would expect to find around a home: kitchen table, bedroom furniture, rocking chairs. We even use this process for crafting the perfect office furniture like desks, chairs, & conference tables. Even pieces that you would never expect!
Custom Furniture for your Health
A permanently disabled customer could not find a quality pair of wooden crutches. The metal crutches were just too uncomfortable for her to maneuver. After finding George’s Furniture, she asked if we could make a pair of wooden crutches. The craftsman laminated walnut and maple wood together and bent them into beautiful, strong crutches. She was so thrilled that she requested a second pair before she moved to Hawaii. These solid wood, custom-made crutches are now in Hawaii providing a vigorous support for a happy customer.
Custom Furniture for Health & Luxury
One of our most popular items has always been our non-tipping rocking chair. In fact, it was one of the very first pieces that our founder George created in the 1970’s. We once had a visitor, a very tall, large man visit the shop looking for a strong, comfortable rocking chair that would fit a man of his stature. True to his inventive abilities, George fulfilled this unique request. In fact, this was George’s reaction when he heard this, “I was just about ready to make a bigger rocking chair.”
Using the original pattern and design, George tweaked the angles a bit and built a strong non-tip rocker for our visitor. Our newest customer was truly thrilled to have a rocking chair he could enjoy in his living room.
Custom Process, Excellent Quality
Our custom solid wood creations have even shipped all the way up to Alaska! We had a customer in Alaska who wanted to surprise his wife with a comfortable, enjoyable rocking chair. When he found our rocking chair demo video on our website, he knew instantly he had found what he was looking for. We are very happy to report that this customer & his wife were indeed happy with this purchase, even though they never saw the rocker in-person before purchasing.
Solid Wood Furniture, even for entertainment
Early in George’s furniture career, he designed a marble chaser. He thought the single track was boring. So he developed a second track. With the addition of the second track, not only does the marble roll down the track but it also races its opponent to the end. We actually entered the marble chaser into a marble racing competition during the Best Kept Secret Tour of Lancaster County, PA. Each tour attendee raced against the champion marble to win a discount or small gift.
Solid Wood Furniture Customized to your Life
In all… we have created all sorts of solid wood solutions for our customers, right in our local woodshop with American-grown lumber. A dog wooden kennel, stairways gate, crosscut critter (a natural crosscut of a walnut tree with open center), violin case, flute case, and a shadow box table displaying sand from places of travel are all designed from customers’ requests. What will be the next new design crafted by Georges Furniture? Visit our store and wood working shop for a close look at quality handcrafted furniture in Lancaster County, PA.
by Juanita | Jun 24, 2021 | customer experience, Customization, George's Furniture, Office
Stephen and Dora started their adventure looking for quality custom design furniture for their new office space. They searched various furniture stores and websites for a long time. One website that caught their attention directed them to a small wood shop in Marietta, PA that made custom design office furniture. A thorough combing through the furniture pictures on Georgesfurniturepa.com perked their interest to explore this business in greater depth.
The first item on the list was a conference table. A raised paneled executive desk and credenza joined the completed office furniture order.
“I now have a desk that commands the respect as an executive. Behind my desk is a large wall unit with beautiful shelving.” -Dora
Flexibility of design
A trip to George’s furniture introduced the quality craftsmanship, flexibility in design and durability that characterizes all the furniture handcrafted in George’s wood shop. They learned about how solid hardwood furniture is made while watching the craftsmen create furniture during a wood shop tour. Many details, ideas, and conversations later resulted in the first of many pieces of walnut furniture. Stephen recalls the amazing attention to details displayed from the initial design phase to the final finishing of the conference table.
Custom headboard design
The personal experience and quality of craftsmanship led Stephen and Dora to fill their house with more unique handcrafted furniture. Each room required specific spacing and a desire for functionality. The next room requiring furniture was the bedroom. A specially designed headboard is a massive wall unit that looks like it was custom built in the room. It includes two large nightstands with storage units on top, a mirror sandwiched between and a valance to complete the unit. Each nightstand section had a pullout shelf for additional counter space. 
A hope chest stands at the footboard adding more storage space. While the headboard wall unit is the center attraction of the bedroom, a large dresser, chest of drawers and a double armoire bring the bedroom suite to life. All the furniture displayed wooden handles and raised panel sides. A special heart was engraved into the hope chest.
Dora says, “The walnut wood is so gorgeous.”
Concealed Functionality
As a retired police officer, Stephen wanted some hidden places for special items. Together with Anthony, our furniture designer, they designed hidden storage with unique accesses into various pieces of their furniture.
Ideas are endless
The ability to design furniture to meet personal desires is an asset that drives Stephen and Dora’s journey of creative living spaces. They look forward to designing a beach bedroom and dining room soon. The love for quality furniture spurs Stephen and Dora to share their newfound treasure with everyone they meet. Come join them in their discovery of quality furniture at George’s Furniture store and bring your dreams to a reality.
by Juanita | May 27, 2021 | 50th anniversary, Ava Lee's History Corner, George's Furniture
George realized his natural gift and talent for making quality wood products and wanted to spread the word. The challenge with spreading the word about quality of hand-crafted products is finding customers who appreciate handcrafted items.
Craft shows
George first displayed his wood items at Springs Festival, Springs, PA. He skillfully created live edge furniture such as stools, benches, tables, and bookends. Thin, woven wood-strip baskets and lamp shades characterized his unique, woodworking styles. Throughout the show day, 
George engraved custom plaques ready in one hour. Other larger wood items like rockers, dry sinks, trestle table and benches were available for purchase. Customers also used the furniture to explore the different furniture style options for placing custom orders. For many years, the order placed at the craft show supplied work for the next 12 months. George not only went to Springs festival but also displayed his crafts at the Dutch Family Festival in Lancaster, PA during the summer tourist season.
First Showroom
In 1973, he rented a small showroom at 4 Center Square, Elizabethtown, PA. Later that winter he moved his furniture store to 20 S. Market Street, Elizabethtown, where he sold furniture for thirteen years. This furniture store was quite small but allowed customers to see the quality of craftsmanship made by George and his craftsmen. On Friday and Saturdays, he also had a stand at Meadowbrook Farmer’s Market, Leola, PA. George purchased a 12-acre farm where he moved his wood working shop into the dairy barn.
Showroom and wood shop tours
One added benefit our customers enjoy is touring the wood shop. George moved the showroom to the same location as the wood shop. Allowing customer to view the furniture manufacturing shows everyone the time and attention to detail given to each piece of furniture. The larger showrooms 
present a visual display of completed furniture. Larger furniture-dining room sets, bedroom suites, living room tables, entertainment centers are displayed.
Visit Today
Our two large showrooms are located 9 Reichs Church Road, Marietta, PA, Monday through Saturday. The wood-shop tour exhibits the manufacturing process from raw lumber to finished furniture. Take a trip to our location and enjoy the quality furniture and talk to our design team about a new piece of custom-made furniture. We also display our furniture at craftshows in the Eastern United States. Check our website for updated schedule.
by Juanita | May 3, 2021 | Coffee End Table, customer experience, Customization, Events, George's Furniture, Hutch
George’s Difference – Viewing Your Own Handcrafted Furniture
The next time you visit Lancaster, PA we want to give you a tour of our shop where each piece of our solid wood furniture is handcrafted & custom made. Yes, it is true! We love bringing guests on a tour of our wood-working shop. Quite honestly, that is what makes us different from nearly any other furniture shop you can think of.
Of course, it is not just a tour of some automated wood shop. You see our craftsmen at work, literally drilling, planing, and staining with the tools in their hands to produce your perfect handcrafted solid wood furniture. Actually, we invite not only our guests but any customer with any order in progress to schedule a time to visit & watch their furniture crafted by hand right in front of their very eyes. That was how Tom & Karen found us!
See furniture order handcrafted
“My wife and I had been furniture shopping for over a year and decided it was time to buy. While my wife was getting ready, I decided to make one last internet search for Lancaster County furniture stores. I was positive that we had already visited every furniture store so I was not optimistic about finding something new. George’s Furniture appeared on a list of stores we had previously visited, some of them multiple times. They were located near Maytown so I clicked on their website.” -Tom
The beauty of creating custom handmade furniture is that we can support your vision in a way that works for you, instead of just selling you assembly line, machine-made furniture.
Perhaps you need a dining table that is large enough to host all your children & grandchildren for a holiday meal. Maybe you are looking for a bedroom set that can become a family heirloom & add to the beauty of your home. In the professional setting, we even love designing executive desks & conference tables. (Did you know we even designed a conference table for the Pentagon?)
Beginning the handcrafted furniture process
“We were met by Anthony upon our arrival. After explaining what we were looking for, he expertly guided us through all the options. When ordering custom made furniture there are lots of decisions to make. After several hours our order was finalized.” -Tom
Tom and Karen worked with our designers to create the perfect dining set to meet their specific needs and interests. They also scheduled an appointment to see their furniture in process.
As we walked them through the tour, they saw the chairs ready for assembly. The artisan carefully placed glue into the precisely angled holes drilled into the seat for the chair legs. Tom and Karen observed the chair leveling process to make sure the chair would sit level in their home.
“I didn’t realize that so much work goes into making furniture.” — Tom
The finished table waited in the completed area. In the wood shop, they could see the other pieces of their set in progress too. A bench sat ready for assembly. The glued together coffee table wood top was ready for its next step of shaping and edge routing. The stained pantry waited for the final clear water-resistant coat of catalyzed conversion varnish.
Assembly lines vs handcrafted
Several minutes into the tour, Tom asked about the difference between George’s furniture process and other furniture manufacturing.
He referred to the cost and time difference of mass production assembly lines. We know many of our customers & guests wonder the same thing.
To be quite honest, mass production uses automated production lines and large sheets of plywood and particleboard in the construction. Since their focus is often on quantity over quality, they spend little time on matching grain or on preparing the wood well for assembly. We take the extra time of planing, cutting, and gluing the solid wood pieces together. That is what makes our process so different.
The path to quality
Handcrafted custom furniture made at George’s shop displays the careful attention to the wood grain, design, durability, and strength of the construction. Can I walk you through our complete process?
- Each artisan selects properly dried solid wood boards & cuts them to length. They use a jointer in their preparation process to make the boards flat, square & easy to assemble together (You can find out more about how jointers work here.) A thickness planer is also an essential part of this process to prepare the board & ensure that it is the same thickness all the way around the board. (The thickness planer is explained more here.)
- The furniture is ready for assembly after construction of all the individual parts. All those individual parts often include legs, skirts, tops, sides, solid wood drawers (fronts, sides, bottom), raised panel doors, rungs, seats, chair top, tongue-groove backing, etc.
- Next, they stain it and apply a clear coat of finish. The artisan signs and dates their finished piece before an all-over light sanding and final application of water-resistant clear coat of spray-top to bottom, inside and out. We actually asked our previous customers if they can still see the signature on their piece & these are the photos they shared with us.
- The final step in assembly is installing the hardware such as knobs & handles on drawers, adding in the table slides (our extension table is one of our most popular products actually!), and completing the tongue and groove backing.
- Last stop is the storage area where the finished product waits for the completion of the other pieces in the order. For example, maybe you have ordered a full dining table & chairs set like many of our other customers. Maybe you even ordered a bedroom suite of a bed, night stand & chest of drawers. This final waiting area is where we collect all pieces of an order before we deliver the complete set to the customer’s house.
Time to enjoy your gorgeous handcrafted furniture
“Our furniture was recently delivered and we are very happy with all the pieces. They are gorgeous and exactly as we ordered. The entire process from beginning to end was very pleasant and trouble free. We visited the shop and saw several of our pieces while in production. In closing, my wife and I would like to sincerely thank everyone at George’s Furniture.” – Tom & Karen
This is what makes us different from any other furniture shop you have visited. You set the vision & we are happy to share our catalog of creations if you need inspiration. Then you can tour our shop to watch our master woodworkers bring your vision to life. Finally you get to enjoy quality, handcrafted furniture that will last your family for decades.
To help you start this process to high quality, handcrafted furniture, we created this handy checklist to spot high-quality furniture. Download the checklist here so you know what to avoid in your furniture shopping. Then call us when you are ready to design your own custom, handcrafted piece.
