Stephen
Who: Stephen Wain
What: Wain Green Wood
Where: Charleston, South Carolina
Website: www.waingreenwood.com or e-mail him at waingreenwood@gmail.com
Stephen Wain started creating wooden pieces around three years ago using palette material to make simple benches. Over the last year, his love of heart pine and creative talent have led him to where he is now: building beautiful, functional custom pieces for eager customers. Wain Green Wood operates out of a moderate sized warehouse type space on the outskirts of downtown and is full of Stephen’s hand made projects. He uses 100% old Charleston building materials, so each piece comes with a little bit of history behind it. Stephen likes that you can see the old tool marks, carvings and other markings made by craftsmen from hundreds of years ago. “We like to highlight that, to show the craftsmanship – both old and new.” It is a space he hopes will rally other carpenters to join him, as he feels some have the ingenuity and creativity, but rarely have an outlet for it.
Stephen’s price points are incredibly reasonable and he can even break it down for your budget. You are simply paying for his hours and hard work, but will most likely spend about half of what people in bigger cities would charge you. “There’s no magic to it, just time. And if you’re not gonna put the time into it, you can’t ask people for their money. It wouldn’t be honest.” Well Stephen, I couldn’t agree with you more.
“This is deeper for me, the history is here. The Preservation Society started here and was basically made to protect heart pine. Heart of the South-this heart pine. There’s just something majestic about it.”
A woman came to Stephen wanting to keep her child’s crib with the family, so he broke it apart and turned it into this small child’s bed.
Hercules guarding two early benches
A lady found Stephen on craigslist, showed him these old columns and said, “Do something with that”. So they started talking and sketching things out, and decided on this table. Stephen added the copper inlay to match another piece of her existing furniture.
Photos and story by Kate
