I Do Woodworking Here

RVP~1875, the world’s only producing historical furniture shop and museum, is located in the century-old Milligan Lumber Grain & Coal building in Jefferson, Iowa. Owner, Robby Pedersen, is a Master Furniture Maker with over 20 years experience, who has built over 800 pieces of historically accurate furniture using only the tools, techniques and finishes used in 1875 Iowa. On display is the largest working set of 19th Century woodworking tools well...anywhere. Our shop features an 1860’s foot-powered lathe, an 1870’s hand-crank ripsaw, and over 400 different hand planes. The showroom displays over 100 pieces of furniture, each with a story of historical significance. Robby passionately shares his love of historic furniture making and how it relates to Iowa history with his visitors.

When you've fallen in love with a piece of RVP~1875 furniture and you know the size and options you want, you will need to decide which wood you would like. Robby works 17 different types of wood, all native to Iowa in 1875. You may have noticed that each piece has a price range. This range in price is determined by the wood a customer chooses and hinges upon the density of that wood. Less dense woods such as Pine, Fir, or Cedar fall at the lower end of the price scale while harder woods like Oak, Walnut, or Locust, fall at the upper end. Woods such as Poplar, Willow and Butternut are in the middle of this range.

The second decision that must be made is the color you would like on your piece. Customers generally find a piece on the floor or website they like, and we color their piece to match. Robby makes all of our dyes in the exact way they did in 1875, boiling Walnut husks and tinting with rasberries, onion skins, ect. so adjusting the color to your liking is no problem. Also, customers decide how much character they like in their piece. Knots and plane marks are present in all our pieces, but the amount can controlled. That is entirely up to you.

Finally, you will choose your hardware. We show many different hand-forged options on our prototype pieces so chances are you will see something you like. If you have something specific in mind that we don't have, we can have most anything created for you by a blacksmith.
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