Furniture
When Amy asked us to write about our story we started to think about
what we are about and what is important to us. Really when you break down our
life, it boils down to four F words; Faith, Family, Fun and Furniture. It wasn’t always like that, well the last F
that is.
Both of us grew up in awesome families, ones with love for God and
people. That is what attracted us to each other when we met on a random date
after church one Sunday afternoon. We immediately were into each other (and our
love for brown, not black clothing…long story and strange I know) and just six
short weeks after that we were engaged and a year later, married! That was just
over five years ago now! In that short time, life has been cray cray for sure,
but in a good way. We have worked for and continue to work for 3 businesses,
started 2 entrepreneurial ventures, had 2 kids, re-did our new house and got a
dog…among many other things of course! Just saying it makes me tired.
So this is how the story goes though of how MegMade (the last F) was
birthed.
When we first got married, Joe had just started a new real estate
venture with his dad and brothers and as all new ventures go, there was not a
lot of money coming in initially. I was working not-for-profit for an amazing
organization called By The Hand (still do part time), also not making much.
Therefore, all money was going towards needs and not wants.
However, my love for design and décor was growing. Then on Joe’s first
birthday after we were married I bought him a drill and table saw. Though we
didn’t know how to use them, we started some projects. After several, and I
mean several failures, we got the hang of it and haven’t stopped!
Neither of us grew up in homes where we really built anything or did any
creative décor projects. We both liked style, but had no experience decorating
or making anything. Once we started with
Joe’s new tools, we for the first time in our lives, realized we were really
truly creative and when you have the tools you can make almost anything that
you can think up!
One day we needed a dresser for our second bedroom. After shopping at our favorite stores (West Elm,
Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel), we quickly realized how over-priced and
poorly made new furniture can be. Our neighbor that same week offered us one of
their old dressers. Knowing nothing
about One Step Paint, we painted it. The
before and after of this piece was got us really excited about painting
furniture and it really jumped started our furniture painting obsession. This piece was a gorgeous piece, but it
wasn’t the right fit for us so we decided to list it on Craigslist. When it sold in less than 12 hours from list
to pick up it got us thinking there might be something here. So we decided to do it again, and again, and
again, and again…and they kept selling.
After six months of selling furniture out of our home we decided to make
it legitimate business. We chose the name
MegMade for our business because every time someone came to look at furniture Joe
would say, “Meg Made this…and Meg Made that.” It was kinda catchy so we started to title all
our listings MegMade.
After forming a corporation we took a leap of faith and opened our doors
in early November of 2013. The leap
turned into a small step because within a couple of months we had to add an
1800 square foot warehouse space. A
month after that we added another 900 square feet warehouse space for spray
booths. Today we have six employees and
have turned out over 1500 pieces. We
average around 20-30 pieces weekly and our goal is to double that within the
next 12 months. We couldn’t have done
any of this without the partnership of Amy Howard and her matchless One Step
Paint line!
When we were decided on the paint line that we wanted to both use and
sell, we considered several different brands.
What was important to us was the quality of the product and the quality
of the company. We first used Amy Howard
One Step Paint line and we were amazed at how easy it was to use and how
durable the product was and then when we met the people behind the paint, we
were sold! Not only did our passion for
furniture and design coincide but our morals and love for Jesus made us instant
friends. They are the real deal!
Family and Fun
It was once said by Joe’s professor that if you looked up enthusiasm in
the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of Joe next to it. Our family
aims to approach life with enthusiasm and joy. Sure, there are struggles, but
to take each day as a gift and enjoy the heck out of it! There are far too many
people who work their whole lives to enjoy retirement and don’t enjoy the
process of getting there.
We love that MegMade has given us an avenue to work together as a
family, have flexibility to be with our two sons and to provide for our needs
and most of our wants!
Faith
And finally – Faith. This is the most important aspect of our
business. And our lives. We keep our faith at the forefront of everything
we do.
There is nothing better than seeing a piece that was out-dated,
rough around the edges and scratches everywhere, given a second chance-a new
breathe of life all because of a little paint. It is a minor
reflection of the amazing work that Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.
He takes all our sins, screw-ups, failures, and mess ups and restores us back
into the destiny that He had created us to be. With our restored pieces,
they look like the old, but they are refashioned with a new breathe of
life. When our customers see it they can hardly imagine what it looked
like, or can remember what it used to be and if they can they are truly amazed
at the difference. The same should be true for all believers in
Jesus. When He gets a hold of someone’s heart there should be a
transformation so evident in that persons life that all who know that person
are truly shocked by who they are today.
With the amazing work that has taken place in our lives, now with
our new found talent we long to be a blessing with all the treasures He
lavishes in business. We eagerly desire to be a blessing. In
the early onset of our business we went out of our way to donate a percentage
of our sales. I say went out of our way because there were many times we
had bills coming and we felt it was our obligation to give back. We
don’t say this in a sense of religious obligation, but we donated because we
were extremely grateful for all that was being bestowed upon us.
God doesn’t need our money but there are many people that have needs
and with God’s help we do our best and will continue to do our best to
distribute it to them. We see ourselves a funnel of God’s blessing.
Our desire is to have a wide opening so we don’t miss on any opportunity
or blessing given to us but also that we don’t hold on to it either.
Freely give as we are given. Hold nothing with clinched
fists. We are far from perfect in accomplishing all that our hearts
desires are to be a blessings but we are grateful God has birthed within a desire
to be a blessing.
(a few) MegMade Projects:
Rescue, Restore, Redecorate™
