Just west of Lafayette, in the whistle-stop town of Duson, Louisiana, the big barn on the old Miller place was on the verge of falling down. During the fifty-plus years it stood, the gambrel-roofed building–forty-five feet wide and seventy feet long—had housed livestock, farm tools, and equipment. But time and weather had taken their toll, and by 2024 the property had sold, and the barn needed to come down. When Dave Duhon, local craftsman and co-founder of All Wood Furniture Company saw the structure, he saw a second life for it. Duhon arranged to dismantle the barn in return for the salvaged lumber, recovered around 4,500 board feet of rough-milled, old-growth cypress, and hauled it back to All Wood’s Carencro workshop, adding to a stockpile of heritage lumber he’s accumulated during thirty years of furniture building. Now, working piece by piece, Duhon is breathing new life into the weathered old lumber, incorporating it into heirloom-quality dining tables, beds, and case goods that combine authentic Southern craftsmanship with echoes of South Louisiana’s architectural history, one board foot at a time.
“A stack of wood that looks fit to burn has a lot of treasures in it. Once you remove the bad wood and start processing the good wood the natural beauty and color is revealed.”
—Dave Duhon, Furniture Builder
For Dave Duhon, the Miller barn project was a full-circle moment. In 1993, when he started building tables in his home town of Carencro, vintage cypress was easy to come by—salvaged from houses and barns as the old farmsteads of rural Acadiana gave way to newer developments. Often in the early years, brother and business partner Doug Duhon remembers, a neighbor would show up at All Wood’s Carencro workshop with a trailer-load of old, weathered cypress to sell. Nowadays, though, old wood has gotten scarce, and opportunities like the Miller barn don’t come around often. When they do, Dave uses the wood sparingly. “New-growth wood has more uniformity and less surprises,” he said, “but working with old wood is a discovery process. A stack of wood that looks fit to burn has a lot of treasures in it. Once you remove the bad wood and start processing the good wood the natural beauty and color is revealed. Someone’s time worn patterns, paint traces, or the shape of an old hinge are embedded in it.” He uses the most distinctive pieces as table tops, door accents, panels and drawers, combining them with sustainably sourced, new-growth cypress for maximum effect. “That way, we can be making things with this wood for years, and still saving some of the best for special projects that arise.”
Wood samples to showcase colors
Today, All Wood Furniture maintains showrooms in Baton Rouge and Lafayette. General manager Raymond Smith has run the Baton Rouge store since 2013, when the Duhons took the property over from a previous owner (“I came with the building,” he laughs.) A former school teacher and a lifelong artist, Smith loves to collaborate with a customer to design a custom piece, considering the provenance of the wood, the desired furniture style (Shaker, Colonial, French, Tuscan, Mission, etc.), finish, and color; as well as the particulars of the room where the piece will go. Smith says this last consideration is especially important. “When planning a room, always begin with the largest, most prominent piece,” he advises. “In a dining room, that’ll be the dining table. In a bedroom, it’s the bed. With living rooms, start in the center and work outwards. Then ask: ‘Do I have a paint color?’ ‘Do I have a curtain?’ and ‘What is the style I want?’ With that information, it’s very rare that we can’t make a piece to fit a space perfectly.”
To compare styles, see examples, and explore colors and textures, visit allwoodcompany.com
All Wood Furniture locations
10269 Airline Highway, Baton Rouge
(225) 293-5118
1508 W. Pinhook Road, Lafayette
(337) 262-0059
