We were lucky to catch up with Kris Burns recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kris, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

One day in 2016 I was installing a cabinets and wall paneling for a residential library, and while staring out of the window, I noticed a tree company taking down a huge Ash tree. I wondered how I could harvest the trunk to use in my own work. A former shopmate of mine(and current business partner Andrew Danziger) had an old sawmill and had already done a little urban tree reclamation, so I gave him a call. He was too busy to drop everything he was doing, and I had no resources to try and save this giant trunk from becoming mulch. After much thought I reached out again to Andrew to see if he had ever thought about starting a business based around turning urban trees into lumber. We continued our conversation for a few months and decided to go for it.

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.

My background before Harvest Lumber Co was building fine furniture, but I’ll give you a more detailed background before that.
I grew up in the piney woods of Southeast Texas and moved to Austin in 1997 to study Environmental Science. While in school I became enamored with native plants and trees, and worked a couple of years at Zilker Botanical Gardens. I later became an Americorps volunteer where I learned how to build houses from the ground up. I was then hired as an instructor at American Youthworks(a charter high school), instructing young people in homebuilding.

My interests were brought together when I started learning woodworking. I began with trim carpentry, cabinetry, and millwork but realized my passions were in the finer details of furniture. I took a couple of furniture classes at ACC while I continued to work as a professional woodworker. In 2012, I started working for Michael Yates Design as a fine furniture maker and later became shop manager. In 2013, I was awarded a fellowship at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. There I explored my own work and furniture designs. I taught woodworking for a few years at The Contemporary Austin and currently teach woodworking at Austin School of Furniture.

As touched on earlier, Andrew Danziger and I started Harvest Lumber Co as a response to a valuable resource not being used to its highest potential. At Harvest Lumber Co, it is our mission to give new purpose to Austin logs that would normally be burned or thrown into the wood chipper. We harvest locally felled (cut or fallen down) trees, mill them, dry them and sell the lumber to be used for all kinds of woodworking projects by contractors, woodworkers, homeowners, and DIYers.
We do build tables occasionally(1-2/month), but don’t advertise it at the moment due to our limited space. Our main business model is retail, supplying local craftspeople with locally sourced materials.

What sets us apart from other lumber retailer in Austin is that we source everything locally, and we are very proud of that!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Andrew and I operated HLC on a bootstrap for the first three years. We used our personal equipment and were the only employees as we got the business off of the ground. We eventually took on a small bank loan to purchase a new sawmill to help increase production. The sawmill is located outside, so the sawyer has to work in all weather conditions, including our notoriously hot summers! We grew steadily over the next five years with sales going up each year and added two additional employees. We were able to add to our equipement purchasing another sawmill, two kilns and more woodshop machines. While owning a small business is a constant hustle, we truly believe in what we are doing, and hope to be leaders in the urban lumber world.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

In 2012, Andrew Danziger (my business partner) and I were both working as professional woodworkers in a shared workshop in East Austin on Tillery Street. In order to build our furniture for clients, we were both purchasing lumber from suppliers where the wood was commercially grown and shipped across the country. Austin was in a severe drought during this time and many of the large historic pecan trees on Tillery Street began to fall over. Eventually we were working in different shops, but still closely in touch. We were upset to see these beautiful neighborhood trees turned into mulch and understood this local resource was not being used to its highest potential. We wondered if it could be salvaged into usable lumber and began to collect the logs from the neighborhood. Andrew already had an old sawmill that had purchased(right time/right price), and a fellow furniture maker/mentor had built a kiln on the property that Andrew was renting for his workshop. Having these resources on hand, we began to experiment with sawing and drying techniques. In 2017, we launched Harvest Lumber Company with a mission to give new purpose to Austin logs that would normally be burned or thrown into the wood chipper.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harvestlumberco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harvestlumberco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarvestLumberCo/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiQu9qk_SpcFGCVFgin7jUg