BY DESIGN
Home décor with a distinctive Canadian look,
When Jay and Alissa Sexton got word from a sawmill owner in eastern Ontario that a huge black walnut tree had fallen due to storm damage, they knew the tree could be something special.
The married co-owners of Junction Wood + Metal, which makes solid wood tables exclusively from sustainably sourced Ontario wood, were told the 110-year-old tree had been planted with the hopes of it one day being turned it into furniture. It was serendipity.
Jay, the fabricator and designer of the duo, had the tree milled into a one-metre width and turned the largest slab into a table, which they named the Great Canadian, to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.
“We think of it as the most Canadian table of all time,” says Alissa, who handles marketing and customer relations.
The one-of-a-kind table rests on a custom base made of Canadian steel, powder-coated white. A maple leaf was laser etched into one corner of the table. They’re putting it up for sale on their website on Saturday at 9 a.m. The $5,000 table will be first come, first served.
“This is a really special table for us. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind Canadian heirloom that will last for generations,” Jay says.
The pair talked to the Star about their design process, using wood mostly found in the GTA and how locally made furniture is having a moment. How did you get started in the business of making furniture?
Alissa: Jay started making furniture with his grandfather. From a young age, he was working in a wood shop. It was a lifelong hobby. Then, he worked in the corporate world and we had two kids. Having kids makes you change perspective and Jay wanted more time to explore woodworking. So, we set up a website, a portfolio of his work and he started a more-formal business in 2014. What is your design process?
Jay: My design philosophy has always been to design the table around the wood, and the wood is always going to have both size dimensions and unique shapes and features. Oftentimes, we will physically design the base to match different contours on the piece of wood and our bases are meant to complement the wood. Then we get client input into finishes for the base, colour, unique characteristics. That is typically how we start. Other times people will come with an idea or a sketch in mind and then we will design it out and draw it to make sure that what they’ve explained or sketched on a napkin renders into a 3D design that we can both agree on. How do you decide on the kind of wood you use?
Jay: When we are working on single slab dining tables, we are at the mercy of what is available. We are always hunting around looking for really unique trees that come down that we have milled and then dried. There is also quite a long lead time between when we find a tree and we can actually plane it and sand it and finish it. It has to be milled and kiln-dried to make sure that the moisture content is low enough so that the wood is stable and ready to work with. Where do you source the wood?
Jay: We work with a network of arborists and individuals who operate sawmills and we have relationships with both contractors that work with the city of Toronto and with private companies who are taking down trees that are diseased or have withstood damage from weather and are unsafe. Are you looking for certain species?
Jay: We primarily work with all Ontario woods. Most of the wood comes from the GTA. Black walnut, oak and maple are the three that we work with quite a bit. The last couple of years we’ve worked with ash. There is a lot of ash coming through and it’s an extremely hard and heavy wood, but produces really nice dining tables. What’s a challenge you have faced as an artisan making furniture in Canada where there is so much mass-produced product? setting expectations with our clients that we’ve made a commitment to only use Ontario wood products and so . . . oftentimes we will have requests for exotic woods, which are beautiful but we’ve made a choice to focus on using local, sustainable products.
Clients who are understanding of that get to reap the rewards of the product when its delivered because it’s something made by hand by someone they know and it’s not something that anyone else in the world will have. Can you tell me about the Canada 150 table?
Alissa: Finishing a slab this size is pretty unique so we wanted to do something special. We think of it as the most Canadian table of all time because it’s an Ontario tree, it’s Canadian steel, it’s welded here in Toronto, it’s powder-coated here in Toronto. Jay added a slight design element of the red feet for that piece of red and we had the maple leaf etched into the corner of the table. Do you feel as though Canada is having a moment, when it comes to handcrafted, artisanal products?
Jay: We are excited to see that there is more craftsmanship, manufacturing and production of product in Canada.
We’ve seen such a push away from that over the past 70 years, and obviously, furniture manufacturing in Canada has always existed, but it got to a point where it was almost completely unheard of.
Over the past five to 10 years there has been a resurgence of clients who are looking for locally made product and locally made materials.
We are excited to see that continue, not just with furniture, but across the board with garments and food products . . . we have so much to offer in Canada.