Dark Horse wins four 1st-place awards from the Cabinet Makers Association

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I headed to Las Vegas last week for the AWFS (Association of Woodworking and Furnishing Suppliers) Fair, one of the biggest events for our industry. There are always new products to see and great ideas to bring home, and this year, I also got a chance to promote the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA) in my role as a board member.

I enjoyed all of that, but there was another very important highlight of my trip: Four first-place “Wood Diamond” awards from the CMA, which held its awards dinner during AWFS.

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CMA President Matt Krig took time to offer his congratulations for our awards during AWFS

 

As I’ve said before, the awards mean even more because we know our fellow cabinet makers truly “get it” – they look at our work and understand the time and attention to detail we put into it.

So what is a Wood Diamond Award? “The CMA was founded on the principles of sharing one’s experiences and ideas with other members in an effort to promote success and professionalism in the woodworking business,” says the association’s Executive Director, Amanda Conger. “The Wood Diamond Award program allows yet another outlet for that purpose to be fulfilled.”

CMA members who were not participating in the competition served as judges; this year, the awards recognized 34 award winners from 17 member companies.

Here are the details on our awards and the projects that were recognized:

1st place ~ Kitchen: European (Under $25,000)
Wildwood

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1st place ~ Bar, Residential: European ($25,000 – $50,000

Project 36

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1st place ~ Fireplace Surround: European (Under $25,000)
Project 36

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1st place ~ Closet: European (Under $25,000)

Wildwood closet and mudroom

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I’ve said this when we’ve won awards in the past, and it rings true any time our work is recognized. Without design-savvy clients, designers, architects and all of the other talented people we partner with on projects (and their commitment to quality), Dark Horse would not have award-worthy work, so we share this recognition with all of them.

~ Chris Dehmer and the Dark Horse team

Grateful: A quick look back at a year full of opportunity

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NYT kitchen

It’s been another great year for Dark Horse, and none of it would have been possible without the faith that our clients place in us when they hire us to help build their dream projects.

Below are a few of the 2016 highlights we featured on our blog over the course of the year; click through to read more details about each story if you’d like.

Thanks to all of our clients, supporters and friends for sending us work and reading our stories over the past year: We wish you all a great 2017.

~Chris and the Dark Horse team

NYT kitchen

April 13, 2016

Dark Horse featured in the New York Times

Our work debuted in the New York Times in the spring!

The Friar Tuck house, a beautiful modern home renovation we worked on a few years back, was on the market, and the Times chose to feature it in its “What You Get” real estate series. Each story in the series features three properties of varying styles in different areas of the country that are for sale in the same price range.

In the story, “$1,800,000 Homes in Kentucky, Atlanta and New Mexico,” we were called out for the award-winning kitchen cabinetry in the home.

August 26, 2016

Chris Dehmer elected to Cabinet Makers Association Board of Directors

Chris was honored to be elected to the board of the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA), the association for professional cabinet makers and woodworkers in the United States and Canada.

“Being part of the CMA has given Dark Horse the opportunity to connect with and learn from many stellar wood-working businesses across the US and Canada,” Chris says.

September 1, 2016

Dark Horse wins 5 Awards from the Cabinet Makers Association

You can imagine how excited we were when the CMA recognized Dark Horse with four first-place Wood Diamond awards and one third-place award at the CMA awards ceremony in Atlanta this summer!

The Balmoral project

First place, Euro Kitchen under $25,000 category

The Wesley bar

First place, Residential Bar (European) under $25,000 

The Olympic house 

First place, European Library under $25,000

Third place, European kitchen under $25,000

The Stonehaven project

First place, Mudroom under $25,000

October 5, 2016

Seamless: Dark Horse acquires “Zero-Edge” capabilities

We’ve acquired the technology to produce cabinetry and furniture components with seamless edges. Zero-Edge Technology, as it’s usually called, is a game-changer for our company and the industry as a whole.

 

 

It’s always nice to be recognized by our peers …

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The island is made from walnut that was stained, distressed, glazed and then top-coated with clear lacquer.At Dark Horse, we’re rewarded for our work all the time, in a couple of ways. First and foremost, we make a living through the projects we build, which is no small thing, of course.

Second – and I think the Dark Horse staff would agree with me on this – we’re rewarded by the satisfaction we have at the end of a project. You can’t beat the feeling you get from seeing an idea transformed into a tangible piece of furniture or set of cabinetry. It’s doubly satisfying for us because we pride ourselves on the details – including a lot of the things the new owner will never notice.

But it’s also pretty exciting when we’re rewarded by being singled out by our peers. This year, the Cabinet Makers Association honored Dark Horse with two major national awards. The Dark Horse team and I believe that the recognition validates the time and attention to detail that go into every one of our projects.

We won a first-place Wood Diamond award in the Kitchen Euro Over $25K category for our Friar Tuck project, which featured rift-sawn oak veneer and required extensive grain-matching. The biggest challenge by far in the project was getting the grain on the veneer to line up all the way around the 18-foot island.

Other details: In the upper drawers that the clients were going to use for utensils, we built a secondary tray that is pulled open when the main drawer is opened. This tray is attached with rare-earth magnets that can easily be pushed out of the way to access less frequently used items.

Our second CMA award was a first-place Wood Diamond in the Kitchen Face Frame Over $25K category for the Lanbrook project. This house had extreme height changes in both the floor and ceiling as well as walls that were not plumb – to an extreme degree (probably the worst I’ve ever worked on).

The island is one of the components I’m most proud of. The floor in the area of the island was off-kilter more than one inch from right to left – forcing us to build parts of it onsite and then return to the shop to complete it. This painstaking process helped ensure that everything would be level and the unevenness would be as invisible as possible when we installed the island.

We’re proud to have been recognized, but we’re equally grateful to our clients. Without people who value craftsmanship enough to give their business to Dark Horse instead of making a visit to the instant-gratification furniture showrooms and discounters, we wouldn’t have a livelihood, much less an award.

Thank you.

~ Chris and the Dark Horse team