From House To Home

Like wild-caught shrimp and May River oysters, handmade furniture is one of the Lowcountry’s premier products and a source of local pride.

Two companies north of the Broad River—Seabrook Classics in Seabrook and Lowcountry Chair Company in St. Helena—have received national and international recognition for their handcrafted designs.

Seabrook Classics builds colorful, casual furniture with updated twists on classic designs. Their birch, poplar, white pine, and maple furniture has been featured in films and used by resorts, developers, and interior designers for show houses and model homes.

From a planked, blue headboard with whale cutouts for a child’s room to cabinet doors that look like plantation shutters to a classic porch swing painted a vibrant hue, the designs range from functional classics to lighter accent pieces. The furniture is available in more than 30 paint finishes and some stained finishes. Custom design services are also available.

...designs range from functional classics to lighter accent pieces.

Owners Greg and Harriett Bosiack were pleased when the Historic Charleston Foundation asked Seabrook Classics to craft a line of licensed reproductions for them called the Carolina Lowcountry Collection.

On St. Helena Island, the Lowcountry Chair Company produces simple chairs that look like antiques, mostly for outdoor use. Similar to Adirondack chairs but lighter to carry and easier to get out of, Lowcountry Chairs look good in a formal garden or natural landscape. One Lowcountry Chair Company design is part of a permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In addition to chairs for adults, the company also makes rockers, love seats, and children’s chairs. New dining chairs and tables for outdoor, casual meals are being introduced this summer. All are available in red, lime green, lemon yellow, ocean blue, earth, white, or natural.

Ed Jerue, owner of Lowcountry Chairs, says his company is transitioning to making mostly recycled plastic chairs but will still use specialty woods including reclaimed timbers from old barns for higher-end products.

Repurpose and recycle

For some Lowcountry furniture makers, joining the “green movement” and embracing the motto “reduce, reuse, and recycle” is as easy as stooping down to pick up oyster shells near home and visiting local thrift shops.

Lynn King, owner of Boundary Street Antiques in Bluffton, recently created a new life for a weathered iron garden table, which became a statement piece when she added a mirrored top.

“I left the peeling look of it,“ she says, adding that in its current form, the table can be indoors or on a porch but shouldn’t live outside.

King has also developed a “secret, six-step process” that creates a reproduction Gesso finish. Popular in Italy and France, this textured off-white finish looks like cake frosting and can be imprinted when wet by pressing and then removing treasures such as shells, leaf skeletons, or pieces of coral.

King has teamed up with Nancy Golson, owner of Eggs n’ Tricities in Bluffton, to create several furniture pieces that incorporate the Gesso finish and oyster shells. An eclectic blend of jewelry, clothing, gifts, and home furnishings, the “Egg,“ as it is fondly known in Bluffton, also carries handmade art pieces by local artists.

A visitor to the shop stopped to admire the large mirror with a wooden frame decorated with oyster shells, remarking that it would be perfect near the front door of her beach house.

Also an artist, Golson used a Gesso-finished accent table encrusted with oyster shells to display a large canvas depicting a bigger-than-life May River flounder against a turquoise background. The painting, she says, took her “a couple of days.“

Golson says she hits Bluffton thrift stores regularly to find bargains for her home and gently used items she can restore or rework into new treasures for her store.

Visit www.seabrookclassics.com or www.lowcountrychairs.com for more information.