RED DOG & COMPANY
TRADITIONAL APPALACHIAN DESIGN WITH A TWIST
OUR WORK
It's all in the details
ABOUT US
Who We Are
Kentucky native Mike Angel had been interested in woodworking for years but only took it up earnestly after retiring from a fascinating career.
After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the early 1960s, Mike worked as a trooper with the Kentucky State Police out of Pikeville, Kentucky. In 1970, he became a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of the U.S. Treasury Department and, during his career, was stationed in a variety of cities throughout the United States.
Our Humble Beginnings
In 1987 Mike seriously injured his leg during a drug raid and he returned to Kentucky to recuperate at his parents' home. During this time, he refinished some hickory-bottom chairs that his grandfather had made years before.
This project inspired Mike to study old-fashioned Appalachian designs, and experiment with woodworking techniques that led to making hickory-bottom chairs from scratch.
After Mike retired in 1994, he and his wife settled in Laurel County, Kentucky. Mike decided it was time to "get serious" about his chair-making. He created his own line of traditional "mule-ear" chairs, so-called because of the way the back posts of the chairs stick up, like ears on a mule.
Our Tradition of Excellence
There is a beauty in wood that can only be found when someone like Mike Angel knows how to make that beauty show through in finely hand crafted funiture. Mike's reputation for well-built, comfortable, handsome funiture has found its way across the country and Canada, often by word of mouth, articles in publications and displays at various craft shows. Mike is a member of four juried guilds, including the Kentucky Guild of Craftmen and Artist. His furniture is owned by many corporations, institutions and several well-known people, including the former U.S. President, George H. W. Bush, U.S. Representative Hal Rogers and former Kentucky Governor Steve Bashear.
What was originally a leisurely pursuit has developed into a thriving business. Mike's furniture is in such demand that he has drawn in not only members of his own family but those from the community, such as craftspeople, chair-weavers, wood carvers, sawyers, and loggers, to apply their skills to the various stages of business and furniture construction.