As is true for most in our industry, the past two years have been a roller coaster ride for Huston & Company: up and down, fast and slow, hurry up and wait. So far, 2011 has felt pretty good (lots of wood to knock on here). We’ve had very steady orders rolling through both for residential clients and for libraries and schools.
During the final weeks of winter, we began to finalize pricing and designs and proposals for what looks to be the largest project we’ve ever built here at Huston & Company; furnishings for a university library, due to be installed in the middle of August. With the certainty of that project growing, we began to look forward to our spring and summer shop schedule and realize that… well… we’d better get a move-on.
With a good, solid two months of projects in queue as of mid March, we decided we needed to nearly clear our shop schedule as of the 1stof June to ensure enough shop time for the first phase of the new project. We took a collective deep breath and became super efficient, super fast.
Here is a list of pieces we’ve completed during this flurry of activity, and the highly talented craftsmen who did the work.
Saer Huston
Custom Arts & Crafts oak sideboard
Stand and repair to a university mace
Custom sofa table
Wright Desk
Ethan Verner
(2) Two-person McPherson style library carrels
Custom long book storage unit
York Dining Table
Library book drop
(2) Custom end tables
Charlie Glover
Custom curly cherry Davenport Tall Chest
(2) Custom curly cherry end chests
Kennebunk Sideboard
Custom reception desk
(2) JP End Tables with drawers
(2) Round Prism Coffee Tables
Custom kitchen side table
(2) Artisan End Tables
Custom side table
Jason Jackson (photo)
And Jason single-handedly finished it all!
Count ‘em. That’s 26 individual pieces of furniture in seven weeks. Saer and Bill also exhibited at the conference of the Association of College and Resource Libraries in Philadelphia for the first few days of April, and were on site for a photo shoot at an installation on Long Island.
We are nearing the end of April, with six orders (18+ individual furniture pieces) to complete during the month of May. Right on track.
Of course new orders are being taken all the time and there are quite a few others pending; all of which will be carefully fit into our schedule in the coming months. But, having paved the way we feel organized, energized and ready to tackle our biggest project ever. And it feels great.