ZEAL ARTISANS

We first met Bryan many years earlier when he built custom cabinets for our old house. We had gone looking for a new dining room table now that we had a formal dining room in our new house and while we found styles we liked, none of them were of the quality we thought we should get at those prices. So we called Bryan and he first made the dining table, the coffee table and two matching end tables. Then my husband hired him to build a poker table for the man-room. It is stunning and features cup holders, a beautiful cherry wood race track, and upholstered rail. Underneath, it has a beautiful frame that is very sturdy but looks elegant - all out of solid cherry wood. Then we had Bryan build our vanity while our contractor redid our entire master bath. Bryan timed the delivery of the vanity perfectly to fit into the overall schedule. We had initially just planned on him providing the mahogany trim to match the vanity and the mirror that he's made for us, but he realized that wouldn't look right so he came back two weeks later and completely covered the window casement (I think that's what it is called - the part that sets into the wall, from the edge to the window, in this case about 8" deep all around the window). He was totally right and the window is perfect. His brother-in-law (also named Brian) came to install the vanity, and since his profession is cabinet installation, it was done very efficiently and correctly. He was also very nice and professional, arriving when he said he would. Finally, we had moved into our new bathroom and gotten resettled when we decided that our old metal bed frame was just too much like living like graduate students, which we left behind us 10 years ago. So we asked Bryan to design a bed for us. It was large, a California King size, had to be sturdy, a platform bed to accommodate our "Sleep Number Bed" mattress. We wanted reading lights in the headboard and we wanted it to look unique. Bryan designed it and we refined it and then he went out and started building it. He sent us pictures as he made progress, and we went up to WV (he lives about 1.5 hours away) to look at it just before he stained it to make final choices on the stain colors we wanted. He came to our house with his own moving help and got it all set up for us. He not only designs beautiful things, he thinks about how the wood will live. He engineers it for expansion during the humid summer months and he thinks about how it has to be moved - what pieces have to come apart and how they should fit together. He is very good at letting you know when you will be getting your furniture, and he is right on time for meetings.