Wood Pieces for Home Decoration

It isn't every day that someone can take a couple of old dead trees destined for the dump and turn them into strikingly different home and patio furnishings, decorative items and jewelry. But that's what Kathy Beahn and her husband, Bob, have done with their two front-yard cedars that had to come down.

"I don't like to waste things, so after taking down the trees, Bob and I got them cut into two" planks," Beahn said. "Our first cedar wood project was to make a bed. It turned out gorgeous--a true one-of-a-kind bed."

With that success, she said, "I was hooked."

Her husband is the "chainsaw and structural engineer," and she is designer and finisher. Together, they've turned those trees into garden benches and tables, jewelry and jewelry holders, coasters, towel racks, lamps, welcome signs, book shelves, walking canes and "so much more."

Each piece of cedar from boards to stumps to limbs "is so beautiful and unique," she said. And she enjoys every aspect of the process of producing wood pieces, from stripping the bark to sanding to applying the final coat of Polyurethane.

A patio table is made with a section of the tree trunk used as a base and the table surface is a slab of lumber from another portion of the same cedar. With a chocolate-brown center and tan outer edge, the table top looks sort of like a free-form four-leaf clover.

The artist has constructed necklaces that consist of "beads" cut from small tree branches - also brown and tan - and strung with clear glass spacers separating the six or sevenn cedar slices. Earrings are thin pieces of the branch cut at an angle so that they look like long tear drops.

Beahn comes to crafting, particularly working with wood, naturally. Though she went to cosmetology school, she had her daughter within a year of her marriage and her son three years later, so instead of styling hair, she became a stay-at-home-mom, "a domestic diva," she said. But not being one to stay still for long, she began making crafts.

"I love to try and make new and different things (and) to me, working on wood was a natural and creative thing to do," she said. Her love for working with that medium came from her father. "He made so many beautiful things; every time I finish a piece, I look toward Heaven and say, 'Do you like this one, Dad?' I can just see him smiling and saying, 'Yeah; you did good.'"

The Beahns call their home business "Backporch Cedar Creations," and sell their wares at craft shows, the flea market and on Craigslist. 

"We use only old dead cedar trees," Beahn emphasized. "I feel that we are giving them a new purpose by turning them into a functional piece of furniture for people to use and enjoy."

Beahn said she likes to think of herself as "an eclectic woman." The family lives in the country and have three dogs and four cats. "I enjoy baking, keeping a clean and organized home and cutting the grass, trimming the trees, shooting guns and, of course, (the) working of cedar wood."