We were lucky to catch up with Andrew Hart recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Andrew thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
We had just been married and I was waiting for a new job to start so in the interim I was doing odd jobs and side work, easy work I could do with a pickup truck. I cleaned a garage out for someone and found a perfectly good cane chair without a seat. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I found a guide to chair caning and after many attempts, taught myself how to cane. I posted a few photos on the internet and in a week or two I had 4 chairs being dropped off to be repaired. It kept up like this for the next 18 months as I worked full time as a carpenter and then fixed a chair or two per week in the evenings and on weekends, my workload never getting much past 1 or two chairs per week. In October of 2021 I had the opportunity to attend the historic Waterford Fair in Waterford VA, with my brother as a co-artisan. This event generated the most work for us up to that point and opened my eyes to the marketplace potential. While at the fair, I met another caner who has been weaving for 45 years. I was able to spend time with her in an apprenticeship learning everything I didn’t know I didn’t know. In April of 2022 I was generating enough income to replace my construction job and so we made the switch to full time self-employment. Then later that year, after our son was born, my wife picked up broom making to add a revenue stream to our business. We honestly slowly backed into self-employment. There was no “grand opening” or big launch day. We didn’t just wake up one day and decide to “start a business”. We built it slowly over 2 years, NEVER’ borrowing money and working like crazy people until we were able to flip the switch.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Our business has two “departments”. The primary is the chair caning and seat weaving shop. We offer a wide variety of weaving services from cane bottom seats, shaker tape, danish cord, splint bottom, and rush bottom seats. If it is woven, we can fix it. We work on all types of furniture everything from modern, vintage, antique, or heirloom. One of the best things about this work is I get to help keep furniture in operation in a family. Last year I had the opportunity to repair a rocking chair that had been used to as a nursing rocker for 5 generations. Another enjoyable part of this work is getting to work on historic pieces, we recently had an Italian made baroque style armchair (one of a set of 6) made in the 1740’s.
The second department is broom making. My wife started making traditional Appalachian style brooms when our son was born, and she came home from working outside the home. The brooms are made with broomcorn, a grass in the same family as sorghum. The handles are split from native trees of Virginia.
Broom sizes range from ornaments up to full size brooms for use around the house.
One of the main goals of our work is to, in a small way, help preserve the culture and heritage of the Shenandoah valley.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
Our son was born in mid 2022 and as a result my wife quit her day job to be home with him. We had been trying to figure out what she could do at home with an infant and had been bouncing around ideas for several months. We decided that broom making would be a productive and profitable past-time during nap times. It would also compliment the seat weaving as we would now have a product we could actually sell at craft shows instead of only having the weaving demonstration.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pleasuretoseatyou.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pleasuretoseatyou/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takeseats