We were lucky to catch up with Sandra Ernsberger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sandra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?

Our focus as a fine leatherwork studio is quality above all else. We are very detail oriented and believe that putting in extra effort and time as needed on our products and architectural installations is nearly always worth it to achieve our desired finishes and heirloom quality products.

When we first started, it was just my husband and I. This made it so easy to ensure that every detail was up to our standards. The great challenge has been how to achieve this same standard as we have added employees over the last 10 years.

In leatherwork, there are always surprises and unknowns during throughout the process. A particular piece of leather will stretch differently than the last, or a scar will pull open when pulled over a corner. When it was just the two of us, the decision to redo something or spend and extra few hours to get things right was easy. As we’ve added staff it has had to become more of a financial calculation. When presented with whatever issue has come up, I nearly always make the choice to sacrifice the profit margin to achieve the goal when one of these production surprises comes our way.

In the end, we are still operating a business, so we have had to find balance in ways that don’t sacrifice our standards. This balance has come in forms of technology, heavily focus on training to understanding our standards with staff and seeking out very skilled craftspeople.

We use a custom built CNC bed for the majority of our leather cutting. While we have the ability to automate the nesting of parts, we do this portion by hand to ensure that imperfections are avoided. This allows us to achieve a very high level of precision in our cut parts, which helps to streamline the rest of the construction process.

Overall, as we have grown the company larger our focus on the details has remained and expanded. We no longer look at only the details of the piece in front of us, but the details of our training, our processes and our team in order to maintain the quality that we started out with.

Sandra, 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?

I grew up working with horses and did some leatherwork starting at a young age, though at the time it was mostly utilitarian. In college, I studied fiction writing and spent some time flexing my creative side in artistic outlets like painting and mixed media art. When I met my husband, Carson, he was making artistic leather bicycle seats in his living room as a side job while he worked for an architecture firm.

We moved to Austin looking for an opportunity for Carson to launch his custom leather cycling business full time, as the city has such a rich cycling culture. About a year after arriving in Austin, I quit my job and joined the company as well. As Leh Cycling grew, furniture brands and interior designers were consistently finding our work and asking us to translate it into custom furniture and interior installations.

That lead us to found Obsidian Leather Goods as a fine leatherwork studio with a focus on architectural leather installations and custom furniture. While we still operate Leh Cycling as well, we have found a deep passion for helping to craft interior spaces that enrich peoples lives and bring daily joy and peace.

The shortest pitch for what we do is, “anything leather,” but we have two main areas of focus. The first we refer to as architectural leather installations. These are leather handrails, stair treads, built in leather desks, leather cabinetry and feature walls. Our second focus is on custom furniture, which is a majority case goods but does include some upholstery work.

On the custom furniture side, one of our favorite pieces has been The Jacques record cabinet, collaboratively designed with Fern Santini. This piece is a tremendous embodiment of both our and Fern’s passion and focus on the details of design. It challenged us tremendously, but we are enormously proud of what we created together. This design is customizable and available for purchase through Fern. We have loved each one we’ve been lucky enough to craft.

Our favorite interior installation is actually one we’ve just completed that we’re not able to share any photos of just yet. The reason this project has been so special to us, is that the client truly embraced the natural characteristics of leather and agreed to work with a very textured bison leather that we just adore. It’s textured, variable and a true testament to the natural beauty of this material. If you keep an eye on our social media (@obsidian.leather on Instagram) we’ve shared a few sneak peeks of some of the construction that has happened in our workshop, and we’ll share pictures of the whole installation once we’re able to.

Whether it be an architectural installation or a piece of custom furniture, our focus is always on crafting something unique and enduring. We love to work with clients who are seeking that special something that elevates a space while feeling at home, functional and durable. We love projects that allow us to problem solve and flex our creativity with clients who seek high detail, high quality work.

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

I’d love to share the story of meeting my co-founder/husband/everything partner. We’re coming up on the 12 year anniversary of our first date and this time of year always has me reflecting on our journey together. I had moved to LA from Chicago for my final semester of college. I was working as. PA and taking one last online class, pulling 70 hour weeks and then coming home to try and do that last little bit of school work left before graduation.

I hardly knew anyone in the city and I knew that if I didn’t step out of my routine and comfort zone, I wasn’t going to meet anyone. It was early days of online dating and I took a leap and joined OKCupid. My very first date was with my now-husband Carson. I got just about as lucky as a person could get.

We’ve taken a lot of risks together. The first was moving to Austin 6 months into our relationship. From there, going into business together was the next big leap. Along the way, we’ve both learned a lot from each other.

12 years later, we now own and run two companies together and we like each other more than we ever have. It hasn’t been easy though. I often meet people who ask, “How can you work with your husband all the time? I’d lose it if I did that with my partner.” I always respond, “couple’s therapy!” It takes a lot of work to function well in business and at home. We’ve taken the time to learn how to disagree or argue productively and kindly and that makes all the difference.

We also have skillsets that compliment each other and don’t compete. He’s incredibly creative and has a deep mechanical knowledge. He can see objects in his head, move them around, add and subtract and visualize in great detail. On the other hand, I can barely visualize at all, but I am great breaking down large construction processes into smaller elements and organizing our production team to execute these in the most efficient way. We always joke that he’s the stereo-typical creative and I’m the one that makes the trains run on time.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I grew up in the Midwest and I have a very deeply ingrained sense that my self-worth is tied intrinsically to my productivity. This can be a blessing and a curse as a business owner.

Last year, I had some health struggles after a surgery and I really had to take a step back to give myself time to heal. This was incredibly difficult for me. I felt guilty anytime I wasn’t at work. I had a bit of “founder syndrome” thinking that if I wasn’t there, nothing would get done or it wouldn’t get done correctly.

This struggle helped me to learn to trust my team and communicate my expectations in a way they could execute on their own. It gave the team a chance to grow, make a few of their own mistakes, and in the end develop a deeper understanding of how to make decisions about quality control and production processes.

For myself, I was able to let go a little and develop a better understanding of myself that isn’t tied solely to my business and my personal productivity. I took the time to heal and was able to come back fully with a different perspective and some insights that will help our business continue to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.obsidianleathergoods.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/obsidian.leather/

Image Credits

All photos taken by Co-Owner, Carson Leh