Amish handcrafted outdoor decor from Lancaster County

Where this started

In 1999 a young craftsman was building small furniture in his spare time when he asked a neighbor whether he could have the lumber from a shed the neighbor had just pulled down. Those boards became the first few birdhouse, planter and bench styles. That shop became Summitville Woodworking, which today runs a drop-off site where fence and decking companies — and anyone else in the community with rustic tin or old lumber they were about to throw out — can bring material instead of sending it to the landfill.

That is not a small pile of material to work from. The EPA estimated 600 million tons of construction and demolition debris generated in the United States in 2018, more than twice the amount of municipal solid waste, with roughly 144 million tons of it going to landfill.

Plowcraft grew out of that shop. It was started by a Lancaster County craftsman working out of a small shop next to his house, and it exists so that shops like his can sell directly to you instead of only through wholesale.

Small woodworking shops are the backbone of the craft economy here. As the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College puts it, “the bulk of these businesses produce wood products” — outdoor furniture, gazebos, small barns and lawn ornaments.

Seven collections

Birdhouses — 31 pieces, $24.99 to $169.00

Wren houses, bluebird boxes, purple martin mansions, and a run of animal-form houses — dog, owl, bear, moose, raccoon, frog, wizard — at $99.75. Individual listings name the birds they are built for: Bewick’s wren, Carolina wren, house wren, chickadee, titmouse, nuthatch, downy woodpecker, bluebird, purple martin.

Shop birdhouses →

Bird feeders — 11 pieces, $59.75 to $139.00

Platform feeders with a roof, large open platforms, rectangular hoppers, a post-mount tube feeder, a log cabin feeder, and the same animal-form family that runs through the birdhouses.

Shop bird feeders →

Lighthouses — 19 models, $295.00 to $807.00 by size

Sixteen of the nineteen are replicas of real American lighthouses — West Quoddy, Split Rock, Cape Hatteras, Tybee Island, Montauk, Cape May and ten more. Sizes run from a three-foot model at $295 up to six feet at $807. Solar dusk-to-dawn and rotating lights are sold separately.

Shop lighthouses →

Mailboxes — 8 mailboxes and 3 posts, $96.00 to $235.00

Barn, church, log cabin and rustic styles, plus a modern poly box, plus the animal-form boxes. Posts in treated pine, salvaged rustic oak and rot-resistant black locust.

Shop mailboxes →

Wind chimes — 12 listings, $26.00 to $565.00

Ten hand-tuned series from Lambright — Twilight, Pacific Winds, Ozark Echoes, Biblical Bells, Musical Zenith, Rustic Rhythms, Whispers in the Winds, Ultimate, Wind Harp and Purple — each offered in several lengths. Hooks and a display stand round out the collection.

Shop wind chimes →

Whirligigs — 26 designs, $58.50

Hand-painted birds with vinyl wings that spin in any breeze. Cardinal, bald eagle, blue jay, gold finch, oriole, chickadee, heron, pelican, puffin, penguin, snow goose, mallard, red rooster — and a flying pig. A 30-inch metal ground stake is included with each one.

Shop whirligigs →

Outdoor accents — 38 pieces, $29.75 to $595.00

The statement builds. A wishing well at $549. A Dutch windmill from $498. A rowboat flower planter at $271. Outhouse well covers made to the size of your wellhead. Pier posts, plant stands, farm crates and tin planters from $29.75.

Shop outdoor accents →

What things are made of

Three material families run through the catalog.

Reclaimed wood and rustic tin. Sixty-four of the 146 listings describe reclaimed wood, and 59 mention tin. This is salvaged material — old barn siding, fence boards, decking, roofing. Because it is salvaged, no two boards are the same, and the site says so plainly: “Since these items are made with reclaimed materials, each piece is unique. Expect slight variations!”

Poly. Twenty-seven listings use poly or maintenance-free poly material, which is where the lighthouses and windmills live. Structural recycled plastic lumber was developed by a Rutgers materials-science professor, Thomas Nosker, from HDPE blended with polystyrene; it has since been used for roughly 1.5 million U.S. railway ties and for bridges rated to carry a 73-ton tank. Unlike treated wood, it needs no preservatives that can leach into soil.

Pine and MDO plywood. Twenty-four listings use pine and 45 use MDO or plywood — the mailboxes, the martin houses, the whirligig bodies.

Who builds it

Six shops account for nearly the whole catalog: Beaver Dam Woodworks (51 pieces), Brookside Woodworks (26), Summitville (24), Lapp’s Toys (16), Lambright (12) and Ebersol Poly (7). Twenty-five listings describe their maker as Amish.

Source: Plowcraft product database, Brand column, 2026-08-18. Naming these shops publicly is pending client sign-off — BLK-013.

Shop	Pieces	Mostly
Beaver Dam Woodworks	51	Lighthouses, outdoor accents
Brookside Woodworks	26	Birdhouses, feeders, accents
Summitville	24	Reclaimed-wood builds
Lapp’s Toys	16	Toys & games
Lambright	12	Wind chimes
Ebersol Poly	7	Poly builds

If you want to know how something is joined, what it is finished with, or whether it will survive your winter, ask. Questions about the construction or materials of any product get answered directly by the builder of that item. That is not a call-centre promise; it is how a shop network works.

Ordering, shipping and returns

Shipping is a flat rate. Each listing shows one of two ship windows: Quick Ship, meaning 2–3 business days, or Ships in 15, meaning within 15 business days — those are generally pieces built to order at one of the shops rather than pulled off a shelf. You get a tracking number as soon as one exists.

Custom work is normal here. Buyers have had a well cover built to an unusually large wellhead, a rear door added to a barn mailbox for a small extra charge, and one-off pieces made on request. If you need something a little different, ask before you order.

If a package arrives visibly damaged, refuse it and have the carrier return it to sender, then get in touch. And if you simply do not like what turns up, contact Plowcraft within 14 days of receipt for any reason at all — you will get a free return label and your purchase price back. A 10% restocking fee applies to most returns, waived if the item was defective or if Plowcraft got the size or color wrong.

What customers say

Plowcraft has sold 1,724 orders through its Etsy shop since 2021 and holds a 4.8 rating across 458 reviews.

Questions people ask