From Humble Beginnings

We All Start Somewhere

Well this company has been open long enough, I figured it was about time that I posted my first blog. We all have our back story and in most cases, it's our past that defines who we become.

I haven't always felt as if I knew which path was the right one for me. I've tried my hand at more that one career, starting as a fine dining chef, taking a shot in the high pressure sales world and countless jobs in between. Growing up, my family was a mixture of hard working people, trying to make their place in the typical 9-5 job but over time, there seemed to be a pattern. Most of my family took a leap of faith and decided that working for other people just wasn't in the cards for them. My uncles were the first I remember to take the road of entrepreneurship , followed later in life by my father and eventually by brother. Not all of them became wood workers but the gene ran deep in my immediate family with my dad opening up a cabinet shop which eventually became my brothers business and home away from home.

I too tried my hand in cabinetry, working along side my dad and brother but not until after I attempted my own path as a chef. Although cooking was a huge passion for me and I did exceptionally well for myself, the hours and stress took it's toll on my own family. After having a child, the hours in the restaurants were affecting my home life and I made a decision to leave the restaurant industry and attempt to find my new path that would allow me to be a better father.

After many failed attempts to find my place in the workforce, I went to my family for a job. Working along side my brother, I learned what it meant to be a perfectionist wood worker. No detail was ever over looked and the quality that he and my father demanded took it's toll on me as I always felt as if I couldn't be good enough. I learned many skills there including wood finishing, which would end up playing a huge roll in the formation of my future business. After deciding that working for family wasn't what I wanted to do with my life and knowing that I would always be holding the level for my brother as long as I worked for him and my father, I decided that I too wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship and naturally thought that something in the food industry would be my natural fit.

After many different food and hospitality related startup attempts, I needed something more financially stable and now with two new mouths to feed, I decided to put the skills and knowledge that I learned from my brother to good use. I started working for a couple wood shops as a builder and due to my experience with wood finishing, I worked my way up to being a highly skilled finisher. I always loved the look of reclaimed wood tables as so when I noticed that a local reclaimed wood company was looking for a finisher, I jumped on board. I learned so much in the time I worked there and most of that knowledge came from my supervisor and now friend Adam. After some time, we had joked around about how we could open our own company doing reclaimed wood furniture and I guess the idea stuck.

Even after this point, I still thought my path was going to be in the hospitality industry and after some unwelcome changes in my work and home situation, I decided to take one more shot at the food industry but I also started a little hobby shop out of my garage. I built my personal dining table, coffee and end tables, mirror and more using reclaimed wood and materials and during this time, I really enjoyed the creative freedom of building things that I designed and wanted to build.

When ultimately my last attempt in the food industry didn't pan out, I searched for another reclaimed wood business and started working there as a finisher/builder and had a great time working with those materials again. This position was short lived as due to a family crisis, I had to take a couple weeks off work to be the best father I could be to my 3 children. During this time, finances became a real struggle and I had to make some decisions in order to provide for my family. I started advertising for custom tables and wood work on the side and even set up a website to better promote my products. I wasn't looking to start a business but rather wanted to make enough to provide for my children until things were back to normal and I could start working again.

After a couple weeks, things seemed to be settling down and I returned to my position at the reclaimed wood shop. My first day back seemed to go great but on my second day back, my boss pulled me into his office to give me the bad news.... I was being let go. In his diligent efforts to grow his business, he kept up on the competition in the area and low and behold, he found my ads. Needless to say, he wasn't impressed that I was building furniture on the side, regardless of my reasons and in combination with my missed time for the family matter, he decided that I should not be employed there. This was actually very devastating to me as I have never been fired from a job and have an excellent record of recommendations from my past employers.

Having been off for the past few weeks, this put me in panic mode after a couple days of searching online for a position where I could be creative and have a job I was passionate about, all I could find were factories and temp agencies. That was when I decided once again that I could not go back to working for someone else and needed to follow in the entrepreneur footsteps of my family. I knew that cabinetry was not my passion and that I wanted to create beautiful things from materials that others would be more likely to toss away and find the treasure in other peoples trash. I was already set up with my website and had a decent catalog of furniture that I have built in the past so I decided to put 100% into my side hobby and turn it into a business. I started by building affordable dining tables using rustic materials and offering custom reclaimed products.

Once the first few orders started coming in, it quickly turned into a bit of an animal. I found myself answering quotes until early hours of the morning and realized that if I was going to keep up with my customers, i needed to find a sales manager. It took me all of 5 minutes before it hit me. My friend Haley has a eye and love for the same modern industrial and rustic look as I do and she had commented many times on loving my work. Her husband and my long time friend is a successful sales expert and would be able to offer her help and advice along the way. I also decided that in order to truly realize my design goals of using sustainable materials, that meant that I needed a welder. It just so happens that when my now sales manager, Haley and her husband Ben were married, I was among the wedding party where I met one of Ben's other groomsmen, Cameron who just so happened to be an expert welder. I sent the two a message and after seeing the quality of the products I was building, they promptly jumped on board.

No one ever made promises that it would be easy and it definitely hasn't been. I started with a detached, leaky garage with no power, 200 ft of extension cords, a few cheap tools, some old wood and even used a camping tent to do my finishing in so that I could prevent dust in my finishes. Space became very tight and I had to utilize space wherever I could find it but still make due with what I have.

Not having a showroom has proven to be quite the roadblock as many of my prospective customers have requested to come see our showroom display and unfortunately I've had to turn them down. Being as my shop is spread out to whatever space I can find, I didn't really have a suitable place to bring clients to show them the work in progress. Although this bump was a difficult one to overcome, it did provide me with a bit of an edge as I don't have nearly the same high overhead that my competitors (and former employers) have and therefore I have been able to offer my same high quality products as a fraction of their prices. I decided to use my own home as a showroom and displayed my various work throughout the house and customers seemed to love it as they could then envision the furniture in an actual living space and well.. it gave me an excuse to furnish my home in beautiful products. 

I know that the way things are going, it's only a short time before I am announcing the opening of our new shop and showroom but I must say that I love the fact that we've been able to produce such high quality and amazing work in some of the most challenging of situations and it continues to inspire me to continue to work within my means so that I can still offer such amazing value to my customers. The other beauty of working within modest means, it gives a new perspective to my original idea of doing up-cycled furniture and decor and now, I am looking forward to finding new and exciting products to make  utilizing what is around me and bringing that same passion that brought me here into my customers home.

I don't know where life will take me but there's one thing I do know, Grain and Burl is born and from humble beginnings come beautiful things.

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