We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeremy Hill. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeremy below.

Hi Jeremy, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Our mission is to build furniture that is meaningful and made to last a lifetime! We want to be a part of the undoing of fast-furniture culture. Tables and bookshelves and nightstands should be simple and well-built– made to be handed down, not destined for the landfill. Furniture defines our personal space and gives purpose to a room. Natural hardwoods are warm and timeless and sustainable.

Jeremy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Jericho Home is a small business dedicated to building very high-quality furniture for homes and businesses. We believe strongly in the importance of gathering together. We believe furniture is at the heart of a gathering space. Tables serve as a place to gather for meals, play games, pay bills, stay up late laughing– a place to have real talk after the kids go to bed, and a place to hold hands and bow our heads. Old friends reconnect, and new friends are made around coffee tables. This understanding sets us apart. We build each custom piece with this purpose in mind. We take pride in our work, knowing that it is made to serve the quietly noble purpose of bringing people together. We build each piece by hand, with attention to detail, using time-tested techniques, out of the best materials we can source. We are small and local. We live the community we serve.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner is an extremely talented furniture and cabinet maker named Ed Dudeck. When we met at a maker meet-up we heard about on social media, we both had just quit our previous jobs (I was a teacher and he was a plastics engineer) to start our own respective furniture businesses. Even though we both worked in home garage workshops, and we both shared a love of simple furniture with clean lines, it was actually books that brought us together. While everyone else at the gathering was talking shop and tools, we spent the next few hours talking about books and authors. Not long after that meeting, we reached out to one another for assistance with larger projects we had taken on. We began working so often together that we decided to start taking on projects together. The rest is history. We like to joke that we started a book club that became a furniture business!

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started in furniture by doing it as a necessary hobby, while I worked a career as a high school history and literature teacher. I grew up learning how to work with my hands from my grandfather, who raised me in Texas. He taught me how to drive a tractor, swing a hammer, and use a saw. He taught me about trees, lakes, and gardening. He encouraged me to go to college, and I worked as an editor before finally becoming a teacher. Now it happens that teachers don’t make a ton of money, and when I got married and bought a home, we needed some new furniture. By necessity, I resurrected the long-dormant skills learned from my grandfather to build us a dining table, a coffee table, and a set of nightstands. I found that I missed working with my hands, so I started turning my garage into a workshop and began building on the weekends and during summer break to make some extra money. Before long, I had a few jobs lined up, and I started building for a local trade show. To be in the show I needed a social media account, so I made an Instagram page and started an LLC. With the orders from friends and family, and the boost from social media, I went from hobby to part-time job pretty quickly. My sweet wife, Holli, was patient while I worked nights and weekends. After a couple of years of nonstop work with two jobs, she supported my decision to take furniture full-time. After all, the shop was filling up with bigger tools and dust collection systems and projects. We were both parking outside now, and our garage was bursting at the seams. So, I did it. I quit my salaried job and began working for myself. Serendipitously, I met my future business partner Ed not long after this, and he was in a similar situation. We agreed to join forces and created Jericho Home Fune Furniture and Cabinetry. It’s a mouth full of a name, so we just call ourselves Jericho Home.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jhfinefurniture.com
• Instagram: @jericho_home
• Facebook: Jericho Home