Bunk beds and loft units are available using a distinctive barrel nut & bolt fastening system which allows the bed rails to be tightened without fear of stripping out the wood. A unique metal-to-metal hardwareless bed option is also available. Our hardwareless system is superior because steel pins are welded to a steel channel with a steel back so that the steel bracket forms a wedge-lock between the pin and back. Beds can be assembled and disassembled repeatedly over generations of use.

Barrel Nut & Bolt

Hardwareless Assembly

Our preferred construction material is solid oak. There are many varieties of oaks available for building furniture. We use only northern red oak, which is grown in the colder climates of North America. Oak grown in these areas has smaller grains, and is considerably more stable and uniform. The hue of this

hardwood is a soft reddish, wheat color versus other oaks that cast a harsh grayish, yellow color. It is an extremely strong and durable hardwood with a uniform color and striking grain pattern. Craftsmen have utilized oak for centuries.

Other material available for use in construction include: solid eastern maple, solid northern birch, and solid cherry. For a more economical, albeit less durable, construction material, our customers may choose from a variety of plain-sliced natural wood veneers and high pressure plastic laminate.

Furniture buyers beware – There are many different construction materials on the market today. Specifying solid wood does not guarantee that you will have furniture constructed of solid hardwood delivered to you. Hardwood veneer ply-core also qualifies as solid wood. In order to obtain durable solid oak furniture, you must explicitly state solid red oak as the construction material. Furthermore, please be aware that many furniture manufacturers are able to offer a less expensive “solid oak” material that they label as environmentally friendly oak or Asian oak. This material is, in fact, not at all a species of oak and is inferior in strength to genuine solid oak. Rather, it is a foreign-grown rubberwood tree that must be treated with a harmful chemical in order to be used in furniture construction.

We have charted the screw retention of various construction materials for your benefit. Please refer to the last page of the Furniture by Thurston features presentation.

Please contact our office if you require further information or clarification.

For the past 14 years, Furniture by Thurston has been a proud leader in the industry by utilizing very low solvent (VOC) finishes and formaldehyde free panels and finishes.  There is plaque on the production office from the wood industry magazine, Wood Digest, recognizing Furniture by Thurston as the leader in the United States for utilizing low-solvent finishes.  We guarantee that all coatings will meet or exceed California and Federal health and environmental regulations, and that they are formaldehyde-free.  Unlike many other wood coatings, our UV flat panel finish is formulated without Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs).  These HAPs are government listed solvents and chemicals known to contribute to smog formation.  Since the finish will never dry until exposed to UV light it can be reclaimed over and over, virtually eliminating waste materials.  This means a dramatic reduction in harmful VOC air emissions and a reduction in hazardous waste required to be shipped out to landfills or to be incinerated.

All the materials utilized in our furniture are grown and milled in this country.  All the tempered hardboard and particleboard comes from recycled material.  All the wood scrap from our factory is hauled away daily to be re-manufactured as composite panel (such as more particleboard) or it is burned in a co-generation plant.  None of the scrap goes to a landfill.  The tempered hardboard we utilize as drawer bottoms is pressed (chewed up) tree bark and scrap from the mills in the Northwest.

The following graphs show the superior nature of each of our coatings:

Click to enlarge

The 5” thick upholstered seat and 4” thick upholstered back utilize high density polymeric urethane HR foam.  The foam is wrapped with ¾” thick Dacron wrap and is supported by a solid 1” x 2 ½” thick hardwood frame with steel no-sag springs.  There are five 12-gauge springs on the back and five 8 ½ - gauge springs on the seat.

Steel no-sag springs offer the highest level of support and durability of any suspension system, much better than the more common stretch fabric suspension system.

The back and seat hardwood frames are glued and doweled with two ½” x 2 ½” hardwood glue pins in each joint.  The back and seat hardwood frames are connected to each other with a continuous 1” x 1” angle iron brace on both sides.

The angle iron brace guarantees that the seat and back frames will never break and become “loose”.  This angle iron extends from the top of the back to the front of the seat. 

The hardwood frame is then attached to the base frame with four screws.  The fabric casings for the seat and back slide over the hardwood no-sag frames with the foam.  All fabric casings have zippers for easy replacement.  Fabric and all foam meets all California and federal flammability codes.