NEWSLETTER

 

Hulet Custom Carpentry

 

For my project I decided to turn my hobby of woodworking into a business.  I have always enjoyed building things, and after taking wood shop in high school, my love of woodworking grew immensely.  I have slowly accumulated tools over the years, and now I have a fully functioning workshop.  I have built enough projects for people I know around town, that more and more people have been asking me to build things for them.  This is how I got started.

 

I took the woodworking skills that I already had and used them to make some money.  The first thing I did was create a logo.  This was very exciting because building my own brand is something I have always wanted to do.  It wasn’t hard to start finding paying customers, because I already had a bunch of people with orders when I started.  I built custom picture frames, mounted American flags, a couple of quilt racks, counter tops, laser engraved pizza peel, and a few other small things.  This project was a lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The inspiration for my project came from this desire that I already had to start my own business.  I have been thinking that it would be a good way to make a little extra money while going to school, but I just needed the motivation to start.  Using it as my edge project was the perfect excuse to get things up and running.  Once I got started, it was easy to stay motivated to work hard because it was my own creation. 

 

I came across a few challenged while working on my edge project.  One was how to actually create a legal business.  I went to the city offices to get a business license, and it turns out that you don’t actually need a business license in cedar if you are operating out of your home and customers don’t come to your house.  I plan to still turn my business into an LLC, but so far, I am still doing it the legal way as a sole proprietor. 

 

 I wasn’t the only person to benefit from this project.  I feel that my prices were fair, and my work was of value.  I put a lot of effort into the things that I built for my customers.  I sold one flag to a lawyer down in California, and he actually gave me a pretty big tip because of how much he loved it.  I also supported a local startup company by having them laser engrave a pizza peel for me.  It cost $50, and we both came out of the transaction with some kind of benefit.  All in all, I believe that starting my own woodworking business has benefited more people than just me.

 

With that said, I also came out of this on top.  I expected to make some money and have my happy customers refer me to their friends, but I didn’t think about how much my woodworking skills would improve.  In making things for myself, I usually stick to the same kind of style.  When I am making custom things for a customer, I have to make it how they want it and that opened up a lot of doors for learning new things.  I created a jig that helped me make solid joints on really small picture frames, and that is something I will use all of the time now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I never imagined that having my own woodworking business could be so rewarding, yet so stressful at the same time.