Passe-Partout: All Wood handmade furniture
In the Cajun French dialect, passe-partout refers to a two-man saw used to fell large trees. Two men work together to cut a large tree that they couldn’t have otherwise cut by themselves, each exerting an equal amount of force. When the Acadians migrated to Louisiana after Le Grand Derangement of 1755, countless pairs ventured into the Louisiana swamps to cut the towering ancient cypress trees, and they used the wood to build new homes for their families. Lumbering became the state’s first significant manufacturing industry, and still today the rough marks from countless passe-partouts can be seen in antique lumber. Wood, like an old family gumbo pot, has a memory; each ring, saw mark, and layer of patina tells a story.
Brothers David and Doug Duhon work on either side of their own passe-partout, each man leaving his mark on every piece made by the skilled artisans at All Wood Furniture. David founded the company in 1993, starting out with $500 and a table saw out of his workshop in Carencro, Louisiana. After laying the groundwork, David called in his brother Doug, a marketing and design whiz, to take on the advertising, website development, and product line design. Together they’ve grown All Wood into a successful custom furniture business that dominates the market for handcrafted cypress furniture. Each piece that goes out is marked with the iconic All Wood crawfish, an invention of Doug’s. “I sign every piece with that giant crawfish. It’s caught on so well that if someone doesn’t get a crawfish signature, I have to go out to their house and draw it on,” Doug chuckles.
The Duhon brothers now run two stores in Lafayette and sell their work throughout southern Louisiana. “We deliver to Baton Rouge, Mandeville, New Orleans, all over. That’s one of the reasons our internet sales have gotten big. People can order a custom-made Louisiana cypress dining table, pick out the leg style, the design, the finish, and have it delivered to their doorstep,” says Doug.
Though internet sales are increasingly popular, the shops in Lafayette draw customers from all over Louisiana. All Wood has a small, centrally located shop in the center of Lafayette off of Pinhook Road as well as a new store on I-49. The new location is a larger space with more merchandise; because of its convenient location, customers passing through Lafayette from Shreveport, New Orleans, or Baton Rouge can hop off the interstate and browse. “A lot of our customers end up going to both stores. Each one has different inventory, and they like to see all that we have to offer before making a decision. Often, customers will come out to the Carencro woodshop to pick out furniture before it’s even finished.”
“When you walk in the door, you’re overwhelmed by the smell of cypress. It’s wonderful. People love coming in,” Doug says. “Dave has always had the philosophy that when customers walk through the door, no pressure sells. Our stores have a laid-back atmosphere, and we let people walk around and enjoy the experience. We never push a sale. Sometimes people come in a few times to look at something until they decide they just have to buy it.”
“We do a lot of custom work. We specialize in dining room tables, TV stands, armoires, and outdoor furniture,” Doug says. “Kitchen hutches and gun cabinets are a frequent request. We also do beds, bedroom sets, chairs, and tables of all shapes and sizes. A client can bring in a photo of something and we will create it for them,” Doug says. All Wood’s popular dining table lines offer a wide range of selections, including a wide array of leg styles. “A lot of people see tables they like elsewhere but not in the right size. They can come to us and pick out the size, leg style, skirt style, plank, patina, and the benches or chairs to go with it.”
“A lot of the material we use is antique wood, cut 50-75 years ago. They used to put the cypress trees through mills with huge saws, and the saw marks are still on the wood. After hanging on a barn for years, the wood takes on a rich patina.” In addition to the antique wood, All Wood also offers new growth cypress. “We can leave it with the natural finish or color it with high-quality wood stain. We have fruitwood, dark oak, golden hickory, mahogany, even some colors we’ve created ourselves. We can also mix stain to match wood the client may already have around the house. The Cajun Cypress color is really popular—we mixed it up one day and people started asking for it. It emulates the old cypress look. Some people even buy the stain to do other pieces they have around the house.”
“We have a large selection of outdoor furniture lines. We have collections of Adirondack chairs, porch swings, arbors, tables, benches, gliders, porch swings, patio furniture sets, and tree swings. We’ve started doing a lot of fleur-de-lis pieces, too. We carve the emblem into the piece as a subtle accent, into the backs of the chairs or the legs of tables,” he says.
“We can stain the outdoor furniture in several colors or leave it natural. Cypress wood is known to hold up in the weather. Cypress trees grow in the swamp, so they’re naturally resistant to rot, even if they’re not painted, and they’re also impervious to bugs and termites.When cypress ages naturally, it takes on a beautiful gray patina. If the customer is looking for another color, we have a beautiful collection of AWF colors. These colored tints still allow the cypress to age and breathe, unlike paint, but the color stays, giving it that rich, aged wood look.”
The Duhon brothers are proud to work together to preserve a part of Louisiana culture, creating traditional and contemporary designs they hope will be passed down as family heirlooms. “Our work is something people can pass on to their grandchildren. Imagine looking at the bottom of a table 50 or 60 years from now and seeing the crawfish signature. This isn’t Ikea or pressed wood that will fall apart. This is handmade by Louisiana artisans, and it will last for generations to come.” ✦
