Since the advent of woodworking, mortise-and-tenon, dovetail, and dado joints have been holding the wooden world together. Barns built two centuries ago, still standing despite decades of neglect and exposure to the brutalities of weather, are held together using the same joinery. The furniture we build for the interior of churches should sustain significantly less abuse than those old barns... we hope...

Wood is *word of the day* hygroscopic. With changes in humidity, it expands and contracts. Traditional joinery developed to allow for this movement. How the lumber was sawn, what part of the tree it came from, and what species it is all affect how the wood behaves when it is turned into furniture. To avoid straying too far into the weeds, it should simply be said that it is crucial that the joiner know his material intimately.

Anyone who has ever lived in an old house with real, wood doors, knows about hygroscopy. In the summer, when the humidity in the house is high, the doors swell up and stick in the frame. In the winter, when the stove dries the air in the house, gaps appear all around the doors that now open and close with the greatest of ease.

Using traditional joinery allows for strength, beauty, and longevity. Having designed the pieces so that they won’t go out of style, I build them to stand the test of time. Any survey of antique furniture will show, however, that wood often does the unexpected in spite of the best joinery. Cracks open. Glue fails. Flaws appear. A benefit of working with real wood, though, is that it can be repaired.