Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Wylde and Rory Weber.
Hi Patrick and Rory, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The story of reforest furniture began with me and my business partner Rory Weber camping up in the Uinta Mountains. Every time we went out to the woods, we noticed that majority of the pine trees were dead from mountain pine beetles. I had grown up in my father’s woodshop helping him out with projects and learning how to build and fix all sorts of things. Rory was working in autobody and was a great welder. We thought that there must be a way to use the endless seas of dead pine so we decided to quit our jobs and start a furniture company. Turns out that beetle kills pine is a bit too soft to make into fine furniture so we started building carved shoshugibon style art pieces. Our company is still young but our mission is to source all of our own materials from local trees and pine from the Uinta’s to build art and furniture that will last lifetimes.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting a business has definitely been a learning experience. When we began, we had no idea how to start a business, run a business or build high-end furniture. We had 10 thousand dollars in the bank that I took out from equity in my house. Both of us quit our jobs and had almost Zero income the first two years. In the beginning, we were so scared of quoting people “too high” we were basically paying people to build them furniture. Rejection was a big part of those early days as well. We would bring our pine furniture to furniture stores and hear things like “I hate it”. We are three years in and finally feel like we have mastered walking but we know we have a long exciting road ahead.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We are extremely excited about the art side of our business. It’s so fun because it’s all us from start to finish. We harvest all of the beetle kill pine ourselves. We cut the slabs and glue them up into large panels to fit the client’s space. After we go through many sets of drawing we lock in the design, project it onto the pine panel, and begin the carving process. After we get a rough carve of the design we are working on we bring out the big guns. The next phase is the burn. We use large torches to burn and soften the design. We will burn and clean the panels 2-3 times depending on how much texture we want to leave. Through burning, we are almost carving again removing hard edges we wish to remove.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck has played a very large role in my life and work. It seems to me that sometimes in life you need to follow the luck. If things keeps clicking for you when you are walking a specific path it may be that because that’s the path you are supposed to be walking. I have done many things in my life that felt like I was wading up the river and the current of life was very noticeably trying to push me in another direction. Starting Reforest has definitely felt like the right path. Some days it seems like things are falling into place and my main job is to show up every day and figure out how to get around the next obstacle. I am very grateful for the opportunities that have presented themselves. So I think ill keep showing up looking for luck.
Contact Info:
- Website: Reforestfurniture.com
- Instagram: @reforestfurniture
Image Credits
The Photos of us burning in space suite are from Off Piste Design @offpistedesign (Andrew Harris).
