"Frankfort Faces" is a series that highlights people from within the Frankfort and Franklin County community. Each feature follows one of the city's most unique personalities and includes a story, photos and video, which can be found by clicking the TV icon attached to the story online at state-journal.com.

When a tree falls in the forest, is anyone there to claim it?

Everett Fulkerson hopes not. In the wake of storms and wind, the odd hardwood is bound to fall, its boughs breaking, trunk snapping.

And Fulkerson, who goes by "Rhett," likes to pick up the pieces.

"God's knocked it down," he said. "And I try to make it beautiful."

Fulkerson, 32, is a wood worker and cabinetmaker.

Every piece of custom furniture and set of cabinets to emerge from his shop are completely designed by Fulkerson from the ground up " and he uses local hardwood almost exclusively.

He recently made a table with matching chairs of wood reclaimed from a cherry tree fallen in a yard in Ashland.

Recycling is important to Fulkerson.

"I try to keep the carbon footprint to a minimum," he says. "Trees are a renewable resource, but they take 30 to 40 years to replenish."

He's also purchased rough lumber aged more than 20 years from cherry trees cleared for Louisville's St. Matthews Mall.

Fulkerson says he's not your grandfather's wood shop. He views the space at his home as an artist would a studio.

He left Frankfort after finishing high school at Western Hills to study architecture at the University of Kentucky, where he met Lynn Sweet, an instructor in the fine arts department.

"He was the first one to open my eyes to the idea that furniture and wood could be more than utilitarian," Fulkerson said.

Fulkerson wound up abandoning architecture as a field of study.

"I was doing metal art at UK and took upon myself to learn woodworking."

He graduated from UK with a fine arts degree and moved to Raleigh, N.C.

A friend introduced Fulkerson to 75-year-old Kay Hill, a fourth generation cabinet-maker. "It was a meeting of fate," Fulkerson said. "He had a guy quit and I walked in the next day. I decided I'd make a go for it."

"I was a sponge," he said of his time under Hill's tutelage.

Fulkerson worked for six years before returning to Frankfort with his wife, Katie, and their son, Ethan.

An advantage to working from home, Fulkerson says, is being able to spend time looking after his son, who is non-verbal and autistic.

"He likes to hang out in the shop until it gets loud," Fulkerson said.

Caring for Ethan is a full-time endeavor, he said. His wife also works from home and the each is able to spend time with Ethan when work calls the other away.

Just as Fulkerson works with wood all day, he enjoys spending time outdoors with his raw materials.

"We go to Cove Spring Park daily," Fulkerson said. Ethan loves the trees, he said.

Another big advantage for the self-described outdoorsman is the freedom to climb - but not the cherry, maple and walnut he is accustomed to working with. Rocks are Fulkerson's hobby.

Fulkerson takes one day per week to rock climb at the Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest. His sponsor is Misty Mountain Threadworks, a climbing gear company in Banner Elk, N.C.

"I'm a nature boy."

While Fulkerson enjoys climbing and has free time to send with Ethan, he also keeps busy in his shop.

"I took the chairs out," Fulkerson said. "It keeps you honest."

He spends about 90 hours on the design, woodworking and finish for each new creation.

Most of his work, he says is in the arts and crafts style with an Asian influence.

Since he starts with rough lumber, preparation of materials can be most time consuming.

"I live behind my table saw," Fulkerson said.

One of Fulkerson's pet projects is the "Momo" chair, a chair he named for a friend Maurice, "Mo" for short. "Mo is a meditation counselor and "naturopath."

Mo asked him to design a large chair in which a person could sit with legs crossed and head leaned back.

Fulkerson is working on two more renditions of his original design. He cuts strips of cherry into thin strips, glues them as a laminate and places it in a mold to form the chair's unique curved armrests.

Fulkerson said he takes four to five furniture commissions a year and makes cabinetry, what he describes as his "bread and butter," the rest of the year.

He runs his business, EF Cabineture, which operates largely by word-of-mouth, out of his shop and from his home.

Fulkerson treats his living room as a showroom.

He's redone the hardwood floors and kitchen cabinets in African walnut, created wooden wall hangings and tied the room together with more than 20 custom furniture pieces.

Often customers who come by to talk about commissioning a piece or having their kitchen redone will by something out of his house, Fulkerson said.

His operation is small, but he can spend more time with each customer, Fulkerson said.

"I'm not trying to put cabinets around the world."

But he does put as much form as possible into the functional pieces he creates.

"It's a lost art." I'm pretty young for a woodworker. "When I'm 60, I'll be really good."

In the meantime, the arresting pieces to come from his shop bear witness to Fulkerson's labor of love for the art.

"There's a lot to be said for doing what you love."