Welcome to The Wood Fired Enthusiast!

Here’s a little back story on how we got here…

Then:

Growing up in New England, I have been around stonework my whole life, and I have always had an appreciation for all of the old walls that cover the countryside. It wasn’t until I was working at a heavy construction company that I got my first real experience in working with stone – cutting and setting granite curbing.

Shortly after that, in 1997, I began working as an apprentice, during which time I worked for two different, but equally talented stone masons.  Their work was very different, the first having more of a contemporary style, whose main body of work consisted of cut stone and flat-work.  The second was heavily involved with traditional masonry techniques, primarily drystone walls and historical stone masonry and restorations.

I feel very fortunate to have learned important techniques that came from both of them – which have helped me develop my own personal style in the many years since.

Old World Stone Masonry was established in 2000, and then adapted to Old World Stone and Garden in 2003 to incorporate my wife’s landscaping expertise as well.

As a small company, we’ve always placed a very high value on quality, service, and attention to detail – in fact our reputation is built on it and many of our clients have been with us for over 15 years.  Our family relocated from CT to South Carolina in 2009, which led to me entering a new phase of my stone masonry career.

Now:

The Wood Fired Enthusiast is an idea that started when I built my first oven almost ten years ago. Prior to that, my experience with masonry bake ovens was with restoring historic ovens in many early colonial homes in New England.  Since then, we have built several outdoor wood ovens, and consulted on a number of other oven builds, in addition to participating in a couple of oven building forums.

Not unlike in my stone masonry career, I felt it was time to do my own thing.  For a couple of years, I blogged about stone masonry over at Stone Soup.  I initially wrote a walk through of a wood oven build I’d done for a customer, and then I started the wood oven diary which chronicled the evolution of the oven at my current home. That was when a new blog concept that would focus on wood fired oven building and use started to take shape in my mind.

With the help of my wife Mellissa, a successful blogger herself over at I Breathe I’m Hungry, we created The Wood Fired Enthusiast.  It’s not only a complete resource for building and using wood ovens of all kinds, but also a place to share your own experiences, pictures, and advice with other wood fired enthusiasts over on the forum page.  Like any custom project, WFE will continue to evolve and get better as time goes on.

We invite you to take a few minutes to browse around the site, and join in the conversations over on our forum! Whether you are a professional willing to share your knowledge, or a newbie with lots of questions, we want to hear from you!  Check out the FAQ to help navigate the site, and please feel free to contact us if there is a problem.  Enjoy your visit here at The Wood Fired Enthusiast.

Matt & Mellissa Sevigny