Heartwood Furniture, Research, VIC

Greg Smyth and Heartwood Furniture.. My passion for timber.. began as a teenager when I built my first woodturning lathe and spent countless hours shaping almost every type of timber I could find. Leaving school at the age of seventeen, I served a formal apprenticeship spending my four years with two very different companies. Working with craftsmen of many different disciplines, I gained broad experience building everything from hospital cabinetry to detailed solid timber church furniture, from bank counters to fine reproductions. All the while, I developed a small studio workshop at home. My post apprenticeship experience was primarily with Nicholas Dattner & Co, one of Melbourne's leading solid timber furniture manufacturers, where I was introduced to many of this country's rare and beautiful native species. Over a period of ten years I was able to test, hone and adapt many traditional joinery techniques, applying them to timbers often difficult to work. This experience provided the basis for the techniques that are taught and practiced in our workshop today. The Heartwood furniture ethos.. seeks to combine carefully selected Australian timbers and refined traditional joinery techniques to fresh, contemporary design ideas. We recognise the need for furniture that is both pleasing to the eye and practical, and work towards producing pieces that will endure, giving pleasure not only to their present owners but to those generations to come..