Most people look at a heap of limbs and branches and see a pile of brush. Mike Minning sees possibilities.


A straight, strong branch becomes the framework for a bench. A crotched limb becomes the spindles for its back.

“The trick is the material,” Minning said. “I let the curve or shape of the wood determine the piece. There’s no measuring. That’s how I keep it natural.”

Natural is what friends, neighbors and those who pass by Minning’s Marion Township home like about Mike’s Creations, rustic furniture that’s more artistic than functional.

“It’s so different,” said Dawne Storie, a neighbor who has two of Minning’s benches in her backyard. “It’s not stuff that you buy at the store and put together. It has character and distinction. I don’t think any two pieces are the same.”

Minning, a project engineer for seating at Plymouth’s Johnson Controls, fell in love with woodworking at age 13 when his mother got him a workbench and a jigsaw and he made a wall-mounted gun rack.

“Whenever a chainsaw goes off in the neighborhood, everyone knows it’s me,” he said.

Minning can make fine finished pieces. He’s made a poker table with hinged legs and a detailed box for tying and carrying fishing flies, but it’s the rustic stuff – benches, tables, chairs and arbors – that keeps his imagination flowing.

“We were cutting down trees and the neighbors were trimming trees and I saw all these beautiful limbs and thought something should be done with them,” he said. “I started putting ends together and this is what I came up with.”

Minning prefers red pine for his rustic garden furniture.