Accepting new orders!
t’s been almost a year since I made the decision to close my books to new orders, and I’m now at a point where I’m (tentatively!) opening them back up! Some pieces will be available as made to order (see the “Shop” section for more details), and as always I will be considering new custom work as well—more on that in a minute.
First, I’d like to talk a bit about what led me to pausing orders in September 2022. Going all the way back to when I first started this business, in early 2014, I didn’t have a firm plan on what was next, or what I wanted to be doing. My first successful made-to-order piece—the August bed—took off unexpectedly in February of that year, with almost 20 orders over the following 12 months. I was always reacting and learning in that time, and that extended over the next several years as I was trying to find my niche as a furniture maker, and in trying to find a way to make a stable and sustainable living. Most things I tried didn’t work! But I did make some very nice furniture that I’m still proud of.
When I moved into a larger space in July of 2021, I wasn’t fully prepared to ramp up into a larger business model, but workload and shop situation led me to take some big chances with hiring a full time employee and taking on the larger shop overhead. Within a couple months I burned out hard, and strained every part of my life dealing with the financial stress and never-ending deadlines. I was heading for a breakdown when I happened to find a new income stream—social media (specifically, monetized short form video on Facebook and Instagram). This solved several of my short term financial strains, and opened a big chunk of my brain to the possibilities beyond “make one, sell one.”
I still did custom and made-to-order work through the end of last year. But I knew after the experience of making more through video income than I ever did on furniture that I couldn’t fall back into the same stress cycle. I got mostly caught up on commission by February. Shortly after, I made plans to fix up my garage shop that had been my workshop from 2016 to 2019 and move out of the larger shop I had moved into in 2021.
I have been back in my garage shop now for almost 3 months, and I love it. I don’t have all of the machines I used to, but I do have a nice setup for the type of work I want to be doing. I’m still figuring out what the balance will be in taking on new work, but I’m finally starting to miss that, even with a few smaller projects going this summer for previous clients.
CUSTOM WORK:
The biggest problem with custom work for me is trying to make the things that don’t fit with what I want to be doing—style-wise, budget-wise, etc. Not every job needs to be a perfect fit, but I’ve come to learn that if you’re needing a woodworker to do this job for you then it’s probably not me. I’m hoping you’re seeing my other work, and you want a piece made by Joe Thiele. In either situation, I’m the one making the piece; it works better overall if I’m valued properly for whatever contribution I’m able to offer.
Deadlines will be similar—when I’m booked out 2-3 months, most likely I’ll need to set up a queue order; instead of guessing at 4-5 months out, I’ll be able to tell you where you stand in the order and when I think I’ll be getting started. This will hopefully work better for all, as estimating time beyond 12 weeks out is extremely difficult, and small errors compound.
And finally, with the new focus on fewer pieces, but more in my style, I’ll be documenting each build and publishing content around the process. This will give some background into your specific piece, and hopefully bring you more into the process.
More to come soon! Reach out through the custom inquiry form if you have questions.