Behind the Design: Classic H&H Updated


To celebrate 9 years in business, we thought it would be fun (interesting?) to take a look back at some of our past designs, discuss how they came about, and maybe drag a few of them out of the vault—for a limited time, of course!
These were the very first pieces of ours that weren’t strictly one-of-a-kinds. In 2016, in order to build the 28’ Waterloo we designed and built for West Elm Austin, we had to find a wood supplier. We knew we weren’t gonna scrounge that much wood. So we found a little local company called This Old Wood. 
Securing a reliable source for wood (a specific type with a reasonably consistent patina) changed things dramatically for our business. Suddenly, we were able to recreate designs. The pieces would still be unique, because we were working with still unpredictable reclaimed pine, but the basic designs and colors were suddenly repeatable. 
Most of these pieces were heavily influenced by a trip that Kelley and I took out to West Texas in the fall of 2014. Hemlock & Heather was still a baby, we were bristling with ideas and hungry to create new stuff. The trip proved to be one of those unexpected magical journeys where you meet complete strangers, get into deep conversations with them, and they somehow end up impacting your life. Yeah, it’s not hyperbole to say it was magical. 
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The Alpine

The Alpine is one of our most popular Texas designs. The design is basically our Waterloo design—just mapped onto the shape of Texas. We named the piece after small college town in the high desert of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. Alpine’s proximity to Marfa, Fort Davis, and Big Bend place Alpine at the center of learning and tourism in West Texas. The muted colors of the reclaimed white siding and cedar boards used in this piece were intended to reflect the stark beauty of the landscape surrounding this little Texas town.

To give the design a bit of an update and to add a little warmth, we swapped the cedar for reclaimed pine. We get requests for these all the time, so if you’ve been wanting one, now’s your chance. 

Click here to shop the Alpine Texas. 

The Marfa

Take a drive down to Marfa, Texas, and you’ll see why we named this colorful Texas Wall Hanging after this magical, little West Texas town. Though small in size, the little berg makes up for what it lacks in population with a cast of colorful characters straight out of a Hollywood movie. With this in mind we designed the Marfa Texas Wall Hanging with many stripes of colorful pieces of wood complemented with reclaimed pine to contrast the bright colors.

Like the Alpine, the Marfa is basically the same design as our Waterloo. This time around, we decided to update the piece with our popular ‘76 colors. Can you dig it, bro?

Click here to shop the Marfa Texas. 

The Terlingua

The Terlingua is named after the famous Texas ghost town. The colors in this piece are meant to suggest the turquoise and copper jewelry found in shops and markets throughout West Texas. This Texas wall hanging features reclaimed pine painted in white, bronze, and turquoise wood chevrons, and reclaimed pine as a complement to the brightly-colored central design element.

There wasn’t anything we really wanted to do in the way of updating this classic Hemlock & Heather design, so if you wanted a Terlingua and missed the boat, now’s your chance to jump on board!

Click here to shop the Terlingua Texas.

The Balmorhea

Balmorhea is the name of a town, a lake, and a state park in West Texas. The area is best known for the spring-fed pool (built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's) that acts as the state park's main attraction—especially in the summer when it’s a thousand degrees outside and there’s no rain or temperature relief in sight. The colors in this piece draw from the rich tapestry of the natural environment of the Chihuahuan Desert, against which the cool, blue oasis of the piece's namesake is set.

The only thing we’ve updated about this piece are the shades of a few of the colors. Otherwise, it’s basically the same as the original. I still love this piece, and I hope you will too. 

Click here to shop the Balmorhea Texas. 

The Blanco

The Blanco takes its name from the nearby spring-fed Blanco River. The original was made with castaway bits of black walnut and a single strip of cool clean white. Simple and modern, the Blanco is the perfect complement to any contemporary design aesthetic.

To update this piece (and to avoid the insanely high cost of new wood at this time), we switched out the walnut for reclaimed pine. This piece has been very popular with guys, and we think that the update with the rugged pine is a great change. Get your dude one while you can!

Click here to shop the Blanco Texas.

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We want to take this opportunity to thank you for your business these past 9 years—and into the future. Every wall hanging you buy from us is made 100% by hand, by us, and supports our family. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to live our lives in this way, making things that we love, and that, hopefully, you love as well. 

Sincerely,

Kris & Kelley Denby

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Like many great discoveries in history—chocolate chip cookies, Post-it notes, the Slinky—Kris and Kelley Denby came up with their popular Texas wall hangings almost by accident.
In 2013—about a year into their sputtering business of repurposing furniture, called Hemlock & Heather—the Denbys decided to make and donate something to a silent auction that would benefit the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in the town of West. Kelley, who is from West, asked her husband to build something “Texasy.”
So Kris came up with a colorful wall hanging made entirely from reclaimed wood and in the iconic shape of Texas. It sold for $150. 
“People just went crazy for it,” recalls Kelley. “We were like, Maybe we’re on to something.”

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