In 2019, we took a huge risk and bought a rundown old house in my hometown. Kelley called it a fixer-upper; I called it a tearer-downer. (Classic dad joke.)

The place was falling apart, but it had soul. Every room was wrapped in old pine shiplap, and even then I knew—whatever happened to that house, I was going to save that wood.

As you can imagine, the house needed a lot of work—more than we had the time, money, or energy for. We were running a business, raising a three-year-old, and trying to renovate a dilapidated house while living in the slightly less dilapidated garage apartment out back. Then COVID hit. It was too much. Something had to give.

Somehow, we managed to sell the place in the early days of the pandemic—back when no one knew what the world would look like a month later. We tucked our tails and headed back to Austin. It felt like failure. But it also taught me something I needed to learn: that failures are just learning experiences.

I found a faith I didn’t know I had while we were down there, and we made some new but lifelong friends along the way. Five years later, I still think about that house almost every day. It changed me. It changed Kelley. It changed us.

The house left its mark on us—just like the nail holes and scars in the old wood we tore out of that place. That’s what I love about reclaimed material: it remembers. Every ding and scratch tells a story about where it’s been and what it’s survived. Maybe that’s why we keep doing this. We’re storytellers at heart, drawn to things that carry history in their grain.

If you bought a piece from us this month, thank you—from the bottom of our hearts. You’re among the last people to receive work literally made from that house, from those old boards we saved back in 2019. This wood means something to us, and we send it to you in its new form with glad and grateful hearts.

--Kris & Kelley