I go through all of my fancy shop improvements. It’s the little things that make daily life more enjoyable.

This summer I moved my shop from leased space to a new studio that I own. It’s taken a bit of work to get up and running again.

Designing any new product takes time, but a larger desk requires a lot of shipping consideration.

We’re already at the Holiday 2022 season. It’s not as busy for furniture as it is for smaller gift items. I’m doing lots of prototyping and setting myself up for the new year. It’s not as cold in this new shared space as it was in my old shop, which I appreciate. I’m loving the new Portland life riding my bike and doing the digital side of my business from coffee shops.

It’s been a long summer with so much to do. Everyone knows that moving is a lot of work and you forget until it’s you. We moved from Bellingham, WA to Portland, OR and arrived here so so much to find and set up. One of the big things was finding shop space.

I’ve been in the Bellingham area for a long time, and this move isn’t business driven, but in the interest of moving closer to extended family. This move means lots of work both in my personal life and for moving the business.

Lots happened since my last post. I moved into the new shop space and didn't take too long to get up and running again. We had some wild weather up here with lots of flooding. Driving in to get to the shop the road had 6" of water standing that I had to drive slowly through.

After a several years working from my home shop I've moved into a larger leased space. It feels wonderful to have the extra room, I can finally store extra inventory, hold stacks of plywood, and stock more sizes of shipping boxes. It feels like really living.

Everyone seems to be talking about it, the cost of building materials.  They're going up significantly, for many common products more than doubling. It had been a month or so since I went to the plywood distributer so I wasn't sure how it would affect me.  I use a higher grade plywood than builders do, one used by cabinetmakers and other furniture builders, so I wasn't sure if it would be affected by the building boom.  Today I found out that it is.

I'm always trying to hit perfect.  Not that I think it's actually achievable, but that it's the approximate goal.  Part of the thing is that when I design it in CAD the result is perfect, and that perfection feels really good.  But transitioning from the screen into real physical form is where all the challenges lie.

It's time to reflect on the differences a year makes.  Last Christmas was the end of my first year in business. I had incorporated my company in March, spent the summer developing and marketing my chair and first crate, then started making crates large enough for vinyl records in the fall based on a suggestion from a friend. 

I haven’t posted to Instagram for a few weeks.  Usually I try to post more frequently than that.  Is everything going OK?

I finished my CNC machine about 2 years ago after spending about 8 months researching, sourcing, and finally building it. There was so much to do and so much to learn that I finished it to the point where it would move and cut and be reasonably accurate, but nothing past that point.

September started with so much happening. My friend Keith was out with his production crew shooting video for some upcoming clips that I’ll use on this site as well as other sites like Etsy where I show my work. It was two days of surprisingly tiring work, and I wasn’t even doing anything. I was just talking and showing my work.

My products are always changing, just a little bit. I’m always trying to build them a little better, a little cleaner, and reduce chances of flaws. It’s tricky with plywood.

At the moment this summer is a little slow. Because of Covid I don’t have childcare for my kids, this means my production time is fairly limited as I spend each afternoon with them. Trying to keep a chill mindset and enjoy the time, but I want to get in the shop and make more cool stuff!

I figured out a way to come back online and keep building and shipping. I spent several days building a package hut that now holds the packages as they wait for UPS. I'm trying to respect the Washington order to stay home as much as possible..

Feels like the whole world is paused at the moment, and I'm there too. Washington state has a stay home order, and this affects my ability to bring packages to UPS.

I've been thinking a bit lately about the bottom of my legs. By this I mean the legs of everything I design. At the moment it's just plywood, which extends to the floor. I have tried buying soft feet and adding them, I have tried hard nylon feet, I have tried just leaving it wood.

This was the first holiday season for Modern Ethic. Leading up to the season I was still processing orders on a regular basis and prototyping new ones, so building inventory for the holidays was not easy. I made as many as I could and I had no idea what type of demand I would see.