Schreinerei Thielen – custom furniture, kitchens and stairs from Herrstein

Dear reader, this magazine doesn’t really exist – it is our website. We still built it like a workshop magazine, because that suits what we do: we would rather tell one story properly than ten stories halfway.

Since 1971, furniture, kitchens and staircases that are meant to last have been made in Herrstein. My father started out in the barn behind his parents’ house. Today there are four of us, in a larch-clad hall at the edge of the village, with a solar roof and a heating system that runs on our own wood shavings.

A lot has changed. What hasn’t is the question every commission starts with: how will you live with this piece in twenty years? Almost everything else follows from that – which wood, which joint, which finish.

On the next pages we show six recent commissions, explain which wood is good for what, and how working with us goes – from the first call to the first re-oiling. We speak English, too: many of our clients are American families from the Baumholder community. If you have an idea afterwards, write to us. A rough sketch on a scrap of paper is plenty.

Warmly,
Katrin Thielen
Master carpenter and owner