Michael Doeren doesn't use a plan or blueprints to build his custom furniture. He doesn't even use wood from a commercial mill. That would be too easy -- and more importantly, not in line with his design philosophy. His furniture comes only from native or reclaimed timber species indigenous to his beloved Door County.

"It's simple," says Doeren, who began Door County Door in 2001. "There's an excess of construction going on here. In the site clearing process, timber winds up heading toward a firewood pile or a dump. That can be fashioned back into a myriad of pieces."

Those pieces range from entry doors to plant pedestals to cutting boards to tables -- and more. The usual ingredients is wood like 100 year-old reclaimed native Door County pine or wormy red oak with walnut inlays. And it may look pretty rough before Doeren gets his hands on the scrap wood, but rest assured, it ends up as a one-of-a-kind work of art.

How does he do it? Says Doeren, "You don't have to harvest from rainforest or clear cut land. Recycle and redesign -- it's really that simple."

But the environmental aspect is just one reason Doeren reincarnates old wood. He believes Door County contains something beautiful, something intangible that his customers can take home with them after a memorable vacation Up North. "Everyone wants to own a piece of the rock," he says.

"People who come up here see the natural beauty of the peninsula, how it fingers out into Lake Michigan," says Doeren. "There's that ethereal connection with the standing timbers up here. It frames every meadow, every road. Whether they want to see it or not, they do. If they have that appreciation from a naturalist perspective, then buying furniture from here completes the cycle."

Equally important to Doeren's mission, however, is keeping his local economy strong. Anyone who has enjoyed a summer weekend in Fish Creek, for example, knows that much of the town is now owned by folks from Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Doeren, who started out running a saw mill and fishing Green Bay 30 years ago, left Wisconsin to consult in the homebuilding and construction industry with green product technologies. When he came home for good, he knew he had to do his part, too.