British couple spends 20 years growing ‘living’ furniture on trees

A British couple has spent two decades perfecting the art of shaping living trees into furniture, with each chair taking 6 to 9 years to grow.

Alice and Gavin Munro started their “furniture orchard” on a two-acre farm in England in 2006. The process involves guiding young tree branches over metal frames, pruning them as they grow to form chairs, benches, lamps, and tables. Once harvested, each piece is dried for a year before being sold as artwork valued at tens of thousands of dollars.

“We’ve used all sorts of different types of trees,” said Gavin, founder of the business Full Grown. “Primarily willow, but we’ve tried apple, cherry, oak, ash, beech and hawthorn.” Early experiments grew chairs upright on plastic molds. The couple later switched to growing them upside down on metal frames, which proved more effective.

Gavin said the idea came to him as a child during a long hospital stay. Born with a rare congenital condition that fuses neck vertebrae, he spent months in hospital after spine operations. “I had the idea while viewing the scenery from my hospital bed,” he said.

He later studied art and furniture design before launching Full Grown in 2006.