True Character. Truly Exclusive This is a real product for leaders rather than followers, for lovers rather than users. Buying a Forte item means besides the beautiful product there is a trackable true story. It all starts in the forest where tracing of the logs needs vast experience & very good relationships with the foresters. These logs are granted & a true gift of nature. Just to move these logs is often a special operation & needs extra large cranes & trucks to transport them. They are then taken to large sawmills to carefully cut them into specially selected planks. These boards are then restacked in the original log form with spacers between & bound with steel cables. Then all we have to do it wait... for years so they can slowly dry in the open air. When this is done they are then moved to the computerized kilns where the drying process continues to get the boards on the optimum 10%-12% +- humidity. Finishing the product is pure skilled handwork. No wide belt or CNC machine may touch the pure beauty & all shapes, grains, knots & splits stay as they are. Just slight hand sanding & repairs are done to make the item ready for use at home or the office. Every Forte item is delivered with a trackable tree certificate showing the origin & history of the log used for the item & a timeline of the production process. Forte items are a pure product, which only gets more beautiful with age!