Choosing Your Windsor

You can browse through this website and select something pictured that can be made as shown or with a different finish. But these are just a few of the pieces Peter has made or can make.

You can also make an appointment to visit Peter and his wife at their country home surrounded by the picturesque rolling farmlands of the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch where his one- man chairmaker shop is located.

There you can sit in those pieces in his personal collection and decide if, as a modern day American, you'd rather have your chair scaled up larger than some of the original seats that accommodated our smaller ancestors. You will get to feel for yourself why his hand-sculpted seats are so much more comfortable than flat plank commercial versions or those where the low point is misplaced causing you to slide forward.

Peter will be glad to show you large volumes of reference books depicting hundreds of Windsors from the mid 17th and 18th Centuries , any of which he can reproduce for you. He will point out the stylistic details and discuss where you plan to use your chair so that the slant of its back works in front of your desk or allows you to "loll" in front of your hearth. When it comes to selecting the finish for your piece, Peter's wife , Carol , who has a Masters Degree in Art and who has spent countless hours examining antique original Windsor finish surfaces, will help you choose from historically appropriate offerings that best fit into your decor. Often these finishes require five or more steps and hours of handrubbing to simulate centuries of wear from usage.

Although traditionally most Windsors continue to be made from combinations of woods such as hickory, oak , poplar, pine, birch, ash, and maple, which are then painted a unifying color , single wood chairs can be seen in museums such as Winterthur and at Yale University that date back to the same time period as the painted pieces. Peter can offer you chairs and benches in premier pieces of tiger maple, curly cherry, and figured walnut. Because these figured woods have complex grain patterns requiring a high skill level to turn and bend, they are not readily available elsewhere as benchmade reproduction Windsors.

Call Peter at 1-610-683-8224 or e-mail him at info@windsor-chairs.com to have your questions answered and to discuss your selection.