From Old Wood To New Furniture

By TERESA M. PELHAM

Ed Goldberg shows off his handmade furniture as if he’s introducing you to an old friend. Made with recycled materials and more care than pretty much all the other furniture on the market, his wooden utilitarian pieces tell a story.

“It’s brand-new old,” he says of his tables and shelves, made from found materials. “All of a sudden, recycled is cool. We have dumpsters and landfills filled with old wood that could have another life. But you have to have some imagination.”


Goldberg worked a lifetime in commercial real estate, first for Ensign Bickford Realty and then his own company before retiring earlier this month. He began creating creative, rustic furniture close to 15 years ago for use at a family camp in Maine.

“Things came up out of need,” says Goldberg, married to former Farmington Valley Arts Center director Betty Friedman, whose art fills the couple’s Simsbury home. “It didn’t make sense to buy factory-made plastic furniture when we really wanted a more rustic feel.”

Using found materials such as wood from barn doors, old wine crates and birch logs, Goldberg, 68, now builds most pieces on commission. A woman from Virginia, for example, recently inherited a farm complete with a dilapidated barn. Goldberg made her a kitchen table, end table and coffee table with the barn’s 150-year-old southern ash. And one of his benches sits in the New Britain Museum of American Art.

Goldberg estimates that he works with about 85 percent recycled materials. He uses pegs instead of nails and even makes all of his own hinges with copper flashing from discarded roofs. He keeps his former builder contacts on the lookout for usable materials.

“It’s a future heirloom,” he said of one of his coffee tables. “It just needs a little time.”

“In A Different Light” is an occasional feature in Java that highlights people with interesting lives outside the office.