Chatersèn Workshop

The company is updating the traditional skills of woodworking trades (coal maker, chair maker, basket maker, cabinetmaker) to meet today's requirements.

The company designs and manufactures custom contemporary furniture and publishes furniture made in partnership with decorators and designers.

The Chatersèn Workshop is certified as an Artisan d'Art, a chair maker and is a member of Ateliers d'Art de France.

“I chose this activity because I wanted to make a living from the forest, in the forest. I wanted my activity to be intimately linked to the territory where I chose to settle.”

I live and work in Alzon, in the old train station located right on the edge of the forest, and I get my wood from a forestry operator in Aumessas, 11 km from my home. In this way, I participate both in the life of my region and in its maintenance by taking part in forestry: silviculture.

The Cévennes region was hit hard by rural exodus in the 1950s. The rise and fall of the textile industry at the end of the 20th century left the area derelict, with everything still to be done. For example, the mountains, almost entirely covered in chestnut trees for centuries, have not been maintained for decades.

This gives the feeling of a blank space where everything is possible: a blank page on which to write a simple life, far from the turpitudes of modern metropolises, giving access to a simple and noble raw material in abundance: chestnut wood.

All these elements combined allow me to find here the essential elements that give my craft activity a human scale truly rooted in our time.

Arnaud Mainardi

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