Harried Holidays

Seasons Greetings!

This fall was our first Christmas season after switching to producing exclusively furniture. I expected it to be rather calm and serene. After all, who buys furniture as a Christmas gift?

Wrong again!

Apparently, a lot of people give furniture as gifts. Most of them don't shop very early, and they all want their order delivered by the big day. We've turned down several people already, and I'm sure there will be more in the two weeks that remain. We should have turned down more, because we've gotten ourselves into quite a pickle due to some faulty thinking on my part.

We fell behind on production months ago when I got hurt and could only stand up for short periods of time. I must say that people have been very patient with me, and I appreciate that. Then folks started writing to say that they noticed that their order was overdue already and we hadn't even started on it yet, and wanted to know when we planned to get it going. I decided to try to keep them happy.

My thinking went something like this; lets say, just for example, I have 6 projects to build each requiring one week of shop time. In six weeks, all of these projects should be built and out the door. Problem is that 4, 5 & 6 are concerned that theirs hasn't been started. So, if we start all six projects, and work on each a little each day or two, we should still be able to build all six projects in six weeks and reduce our customer's discomfort. Right? Umm... nope.

Looks good on paper, but doesn't work out in real life. The biggest hindrance is that with that with that many projects going at once -- some of them large projects -- there are pieces-parts piled on most every horizontal surface we have. We can't use the floor because it's concrete -- which tends to transfer moisture to wood sitting directly on it. That's a bad thing. So we use tools, tables, and counters. But we need to use those tools, tables and counters. When I need to use one, I must first move whatever is on it to an unused spot -- generally the tool, table or counter that I was using just before. It's kind of like the old shell game. Work space, work space, where is the work space? I've spent more time in the past two months moving things from one place to another than I did working on them.

This was not a good idea, and we will not do it again. From here on out it's back to a strict policy of First In First Out.



We have added a new product to our line-up. A woman from Nebraska was in our gallery some weeks back, saw the Mission style rocking chairs we have in there and loved them. But she wasn't thinking in terms of a chair for herself, but for her granddaughter. "Do you have them in a child's size?" she asked.

I hadn't thought about that. It could be a good idea -- Matching rockers: his, hers, & the tyke's.
So she placed an order for one just on faith that I could do it. And I did. We've produced a ¾ scale replica of our very comfy full size mission rocker. All of the joinery and construction techniques are exactly the same as the bigger chair the parts are just scaled down, so this is not really a toy but a small piece of good furniture.

I thought about offering a ½ scale version as well, for toddlers, but at that age they grow so fast that they'd out grow the chair quickly. It could be used as a doll chair then, but it's a pretty pricy doll chair.

This version is proportioned so that younger children can use it, but they won't our grow it for years. How many years? That depends on the child. I know some 11 and 12 year old kids that could still fit into this chair, and I've seen some 5 years olds who couldn't.

Again this year our wine bottle stopper display racks are a big hit. We've sold completely out of the three tier version -- including an additional batch we whipped up just to make our production schedule even more crazy -- but we have a few of the two tier versions left. However, they're going fast too. If you'd like one as a gift, don't wait long or they'll all be gone and we can not make another batch until we get some of these other orders caught up.

So much for 2004. I'll check in with you next year.

Merry Christmas, and remember, Jesus is NOT the patron saint of 4th quarter earnings. Take some time to reflect on what this season is supposed to be all about; the gift God gave each of us, His son, Jesus Christ.