Craftsmanship that endures
Green Water Designs is a family owned and operated custom furniture business located in Southeast Wisconsin. We seek to create pieces that combine art with function to bring beauty into your home or business. Working with locally sourced urban lumber, we use the unique characteristics of the tree to guide the design process. The result blends traditional time-tested craftsmanship with modern technology to craft one-of-a-kind pieces that will make a statement where you work or live.
From our family to yours
We are a family of craftsmen and makers. We believe that people have an innate desire to create, which can be awakened through many crafts. For us, that craft is wood. We spent years fascinated by trees and by nature. We’ve spent countless hours walking under the canopies of forests and reflecting under trees at home. We’ve turned that love into a craft that draws on the beauty hiding inside of these amazing resources, letting the trees live on to continue their stories even past the end of their natural life cycle. To us, this is the spirit of craftsmanship. To honor the life of the tree, by drawing on its story to bring beauty into our homes.
Our process
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As members of the Urban Wood Network, we prioritize local hardwood trees as our primary material. This practice keeps this resource out of landfills and woodchippers and gives a higher final purpose to an underutilized local resource. When requested, we also incorporate materials such as brass, copper, and steel into our pieces, as well as upholstery such as leather and canvas where appropriate.
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It can begin with an idea, or a need. Either way, we will work with you to understand your goals, your design style and functional needs. We will mock up design ideas for you to review, present choices for the tree species we will use, and then build your custom piece.
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Once a design is finalized and the contract received, your piece will go into the build queue. Your build will depend on the size and complexity of the piece, as well as the quantity of pieces. We make every effort to accommodate deadline requests, but we do typically maintain a backlog of at least 2-3 months. If you have a specific deadline, be sure to bring it up early in the design process!
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Yes! We work with arborists and sawyers in the Urban Wood Network to have your tree removed, milled into rough lumber, and dried. The process can take 1-2 years depending on the species and thickness of lumber needed for your project. Once fully dried, we will then perform the final milling, joinery, and craft the tree into your finished piece.
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Absolutely! The majority of our customers want to be a part of the process, and we feel this is the best way to begin building the lifelong connection you will have. We will share updates, photos, and videos throughout the process from bringing home the trees, through milling and crafting your piece.
Trees have stories to tell.
“The design starts with an idea, but what brings it to life is the process of reading the wood, of letting the story of the tree guide the design. The craftsman needs to learn to read that story. To let it direct the design to something truly remarkable that will tell that story through the grain for another hundred years.”
- Jeff MacDougall
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