Welcome back, Joe!
I didn’t really go anywhere, but it’s been awhile since I’ve updated the old blog. Since it’s been a few years, let’s do a quick recap!
In 2024, my family and I moved to the Sacramento, CA area, We had lost our ability to cope with the long, gray Portland winters; the sunshine here has been amazing. It was another big move for my business, after a few years of ups and downs through the COVID years. In 2021, I had to move out of my shared shop somewhat abruptly. The best option at the time, with lots of orders coming in with COVID-influenced boom of home remodeling projects, seemed to be a larger space on our own. I hired help, but never really got a grasp on the scale and demands of the larger business. I was months behind on deadlines, and couldn’t properly train and manage the help that I had hired, and basically suffered through for a few months.
In early 2022, I found some success on social media, which carried the shop through some major catching up. That success highlighted the parts of the business I really didn’t enjoy—constant expansion, deadlines, and stress. I luckily had the ability to consider an alternative, which was downsizing back to the original one-man shop, low overhead model. I sold off a lot of my larger machines, stockpiles of scrap, and anything that wouldn’t fit comfortably in the smaller garage shop. I’ve been building a lot less furniture since this move in 2023, but it’s much more in line with my future goals.
Speaking of goals, I thought I’d share a bit about where Boundary Fog is going in the next few years! I’m still really enjoying building furniture for clients. There are ebbs and flows of orders, but at the moment I can luckily say I’m booked out a ways, and I’m excited about my current order queue. I’m also producing lots of short-form content right now. I’ve wanted to expand to longer-form videos on Youtube, but the traditional build videos other makers have found success with haven’t worked for my furniture-making workflow yet. I’m hoping to try some things this year to still share some shop progress and stories in a longer form.
I’m also working on some new ideas around digital products—shop jig plans, furniture build plans, and video courses. I’m working on a full website-refresh, and with that I’ll be putting out some more information soon. In the meantime, If you’re a woodworker, maker or aspiring DIYer, you can sign up below to hear about it first. I really appreciate the support!