Milbourn Woodworks

Switzerland bound. ✌️

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there holding it down for their families. I’m in Switzerland training for a new chapter and missing my family and friends back home today more than usual.

This picture is from the PDX airport before I left. Hardest part of this whole adventure is the distance, but everything I’m doing right now is for them.

More on what I’m up to soon. For now, just grateful for my people back home and proud to be a dad doing hard things to build something better for my family.

16 years. Over 900 pieces. Over 450 commissions. Looking back, I get to reflect on what it took.

Started out making rustic furniture and reclaimed fir tables at street markets, earning trust and trying to prove I could actually build something people wanted. My early stuff wasn’t very good, but I hardly charged enough for it either. No formal training. Just some stubbornness, a table saw, and a few basic tools from my grandpa. This was before social media and YouTube culture, before the explosion of “creators” who turned furniture making into a glamorous lifestyle. Trust me, it’s not.

Somehow it turned into a real business. Against the Grain was taken from a Bad Religion song from my rebellious days. We became Milbourn Woodworks the year I married Tiffany, because the work had gotten too personal to keep the old name, and “against the grain” had become a generic phrase slapped on every gluten-free cookbook imaginable.

I grew a business and a family at the same time, which nobody warns you is basically running two full-time operations. Trading work schedules around my wife’s career and the kids. Late nights in the shop. My wife pulling the majority of weight at home. Plenty of mistakes along the way. The journey was tight, steep, and often unforgiving.

And the clients. Genuinely, less than 1% of every commission I’ve ever taken was a nightmare. That’s hundreds of wonderful people who trusted some guy to build something they’d keep for life. I don’t take that lightly.

The work evolved right along with me. Rustic farmhouse tables turned into commercial projects and high-end hardwood furniture. The street market hustle turned into private commissions people waited months for. Same hands, completely different craftsman and finished product by the end.

This chapter’s closing for now. Not because the story’s over. I did everything I set out to do. Developed my style, put my soul into every piece. Produced more work than most who give it a try. What I learned, I get to take with me. Now I get to create for myself and my family first. Get back to what makes me passionate. On to the next! 🤙