MADE HERE Cheshire Woodsmith | Marlborough, New Hampshire

Mike Wilbur has long felt at home in the world of wood, from high school shop classes to making and selling furniture to running his own construction company. &emsp;&emsp;"Woodworking helped put me through school," he says of his years at the University of New Hampshire (UNH.) He built and sold slant-top desks, lofts for dorms, and coffee tables for students and professors. &emsp;&emsp;The more he worked with wood, the more he enjoyed it, he explains. &emsp;&emsp;"It draws you in and is super relaxing," Wilbur says. &emsp;&emsp;His current joy is creating uniquely patterned cutting boards, rolling pins, salad forks, spoons and toast tongs — all artistic pieces that combine beauty with practical use. His work is sold at Walpole Artisans Cooperative, Marlborough's Hot Glass studio and on his Cheshire Woodsmith website. &emsp;&emsp;Wilbur combines various wood types for his projects: from ash to walnut, cherry, oak and maple, to exotic woods like Bubinga, yellow heart, padauk and purple heart. A one-of-a-kind variety is "wormy maple" or ambrosia maple, named for the ambrosia beetle that causes its unique streaks of grey. &emsp;&emsp;"People like it; it has lots of character," he points out. &emsp;&emsp;He buys most of his wood from Goosebay Sawmill & Lumber in Chichester, New Hampshire. What he doesn't find there, he seeks from Kerber Farms Lumber Co. in Guilford, Vermont; he notes that both businesses are second-generation family-run. &emsp;&emsp;"I try to get anything I can locally," he explains. &emsp;&emsp;He designs his patterns, deciding which woods to combine and the size and shapes of the boards. In addition, he does custom work and has made boards in specified wood varieties and patterns, along with dining room and end tables, butcher blocks, cribbage boards, and even full-length in-home bars. &emsp;&emsp;Wilbur says cutting boards with chevron design patterns and those with abstract designs are popular. He adds that they may appear three-dimensional or as if they have movement, similar to the optical illusion drawings of artist M.C. Escher. Each board is unique, an aspect that appeals to him; it allows him to vary the combinations and how they are arranged and shaped. &emsp;&emsp;"Sometimes I make something without even realizing what I'm making; sometimes a piece of wood gives me ideas," he says of particular details the wood has and how that influences the arrangement and style. He does not want to mass-produce his boards, he adds, having to make multiple repeated copies of specific products. &emsp;&emsp;"That takes the fun out of it," says Wilbur. &emsp;&emsp;The process of transforming the rough-cut wood he buys into finished products involves many steps and tools, including using a joiner for edges and a planer to achieve a specific thickness, ripping strips into desired sizes, gluing and manipulating, and lots of sanding to smooth the surfaces. &emsp;&emsp;The wood is its natural color, without stain, and when he finishes it with his own mixture of food-grade mineral oil and beeswax, "the colors just pop and explode." &emsp;&emsp;"This produces a real sense of satisfaction," says Wilbur. &emsp;&emsp;He began doing this kind of craftwork in 1980/81 with his college girlfriend, now his wife, Anne Wood. They created wood projects in her father's shop and sold their handiwork at the University of New Hampshire craft fair, hosted by the school they attended. &emsp;&emsp;Wilbur and Wood married in 1981 and moved to Marlborough two years later, buying a "fixer-upper" house that they planned to sell later but have lived in ever since. They began a family — two sons and a daughter — and the house grew as he improved and added to it. The woodcraft was put on hold while family and construction work kept him busy. &emsp;&emsp;His start in the construction business began when his neighbor, Mike Donahue, hired him to dig a foundation by hand, paint and do a little carpentry. Eventually, he and his high school friend, Mark L'Heureux, partnered to start their own business. Painting and light carpentry gradually increased to more carpentry work. Wilbur now has his own construction company, building houses, putting on additions and fulfilling other client needs. &emsp;&emsp;"For 44 years or so, I've been a builder working for myself, including my college years," he says. Now with grown children, he has more time for crafting his cutting boards and other projects. &emsp;&emsp;He says he'll always dabble in this work because it's fun and will be a great activity when he retires. &emsp;&emsp;"Most nights, I'm in my shop until eight o'clock. It's just my entertainment; it keeps me out of my wife's hair," he jokes. &emsp;&emsp;Learn more at cheshirewoodsmith.com