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TRANSITION YEAR LAWDERDALE WORKSHOP

On the 24th March 2017, the Transition Year students had & Wolfe” and it may have been used in the making of The
the opportunity to visit Lawderdale Furniture & Crafts in Titanic.
Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim. Lawderdale Furniture is a family After lunch, we got a hands-on experience using the lathe.
run business, with each family member using their talents This was fun and interesting. We got a quick history of the
and knowledge of native-hard woods. Within the grounds of workshops; they had been previously been used as a stable.
this impressively restored house and workshops, the wood Eltjo told us that his estate was one of the few that was fully
is dried and transformed into practical furniture, handmade refurbished in the area and well it was done!
and beautifully finished.
We would like to thank Mr & Mrs Van Der Laan for the tour
When we arrived at the beautiful location, we saw around the fantastic Lawderdale Furniture & Crafts.
Lawderdale house and the workshop. Firstly we got a tour
around the showroom by Mrs Van Der Laan to view a range Laura McClean & Sorcha Higgins
of beautifully finished, handmade furniture. We went to the
workshop where we were brought through the different
stages of making the furniture. The first step is to gather
trees that have fallen during storms etc. This wood is then
left to dry for five years which is a long waiting process. Eltjo
Van Der Laan compared his business to farming as profits
only come in after a long period of time as it takes years to
turn wood into furniture. The business uses old traditional
machinery and tools, because of this it takes longer to
produce the furniture but Eltjo explained that he prefers
using these.
Eltjo brought us on a tour around the workshop area as he
explained the process of cutting and drying the wood. He
informed us on the different types of wood they use and
where they come from. We were interested in the machinery
that we saw that day. It was antique and Eltjo told us there
was a possibility that one of the machines was from “Harland

80 The Royal Times 2016-2017