On the surface, Erichsen Cabinet Shop is a 90+ year old family-owned and operated custom woodworking operation located in a quiet residential neighborhood in Tacoma, Washington. The shop is managed by brothers Butch and Booner Erichsen who proclaim pride in product, service, and customer satisfaction have served the company well since its founding in 1928. Butch and Booner have each worked in the building constructed by their grandfather for more than 40 years and live only a few dozen yards from the shop. All that alone is enough to make the Erichsen’s business one of those great American success stories we all love to hear about.
Dig a bit deeper and the truth is revealed that Butch and
Booner color outside the lines when it comes to the challenges that would
typically confine a third-generation business managed by a couple of brothers
with a combined 85 years of cabinet making experience. Coloring outside the
lines for the Erichsen brothers certainly includes a considerable respect for
what their grandfather and father created and passed on to them. However, Butch
and Booner are forward looking individuals more interested and excited about the
future rather than the past.
Today, with the assistance of Butch’s son, Gideon, the Erichsens
are taking their business into a new generation focused on creativity and
environmental awareness enabled by the exciting opportunities a new Timbery
M100 portable sawmill provides the trio. Self-labeled as a cabinet shop, the
business produces a variety of wood products beyond the cabinet work. “Besides
cabinets we do fireplace mantles, desks, tables, all kinds of bookcases, office
furniture and the occasional custom designed couch, various frames, and now and
then, a banquette,” Booner says. “Carpenters also come to the shop when there
is a missing piece of molding that doesn’t exist anymore. Give us enough time
and we can reproduce that molding.”
A visit to the Erichsen’s shop showcases lots of cabinets
and other pieces of furniture in various stages, plus works of art created by
the brothers are proudly displayed throughout the facility. Look up and you’ll find a fantastically
intricate wall mural combining sharp angles, random design elements, curves,
and optical illusions that the Erichsens managed to draw together into a
singular work of art. Look down to the workbench to see woven wood squares that
turns out to be an optical illusion created by combining dozens of small blocks
of wood on a jig Booner created. Or check out the mounted slab of spalted maple
finished and hung on the wall for the pure pleasure of looking at one of
nature’s masterpieces. Even the OSHA mandated belt cover on the sander driven
by the original line shaft purchased second hand by Theodore Erichsen in 1926 has
been made to be visually attractive.
Erichsen Cabinet Shop is tucked into a neighborhood almost
as old as the shop itself. As Booner says, “The shop is heated with firewood
and nothing else. Everyone in the neighborhood knows we burn wood every day in
the winter so, when a tree is cut down they call the shop. We pick up free firewood and the neighbors
save a hand off fee.” While burning wood kept the shop cozy and warm, neither
Booner, Butch, nor Gideon were happy to see beautiful wood going into the stove
rather than being milled into usable lumber or other products. Things came to a
head when Booner recounts, “An arborist found the shop’s back forty a
convenient place to store logs with the promise of milling them with his
chainsaw mill but, he fell short on his promises. A neighbor was going to cut
down a Deadore cedar and asked Butch how he wanted it cut. Butch told him to
cut it into logs eight to ten feet long then send the logs off to a local
sawmill. It took forever to get it back
but, with the help of a hundred year old six by six post Butch used for legs,
that tree is now his dining room table.”
The final determining factor came when a friend of Booner’s
decided to cut down three Sequoia trees.
“I didn’t want to see the logs trashed with a chainsaw mill or go to
waste as firewood so I looked around for a real sawmill,” Booner says. “We
decided on a Timbery M100 as the best fit for us.” Booner points to one small
problem with that decision with a bit of a grin. Since the sawmill arrived, the
lumber, slab, post, and just plain interesting piece of sawn wood pile has
grown and the firewood pile has shrunk dramatically. “This was the first year
we didn’t have enough firewood to make it through the winter,” Booner laughed.
Butch, Booner, and Gideon have always sought new ways to get
more out of every scrap of wood coming into their place of business and the
Timbery sawmill has helped them achieve that. “The sawmill allows us to craft
pieces of art, reading the logs and determining lines before a log gets cut,
just like an artisan would with a block of marble,” says Gideon Erichsen, fourth
generation craftsman at Erichsen Cabinet Shop. “The other part is that the wood
becomes usable, which makes everyone happy, as before, without this tool, all
the wood was usually wasted or just firewood. Recycling is key to me, and if
you can repurpose or reuse a material to its absolute potential that's what
makes me happy. That's what makes this sawmill worth it to me.”
