There are several talented and accomplished woodworkers in Texas County. At least one of them has parlayed that gift into a successful and thriving business.
Using repurposed barn wood, lifelong county resident Brooke Hamilton creates items such as coffee tables, stools and wall hangings that are sold through multiple online sources under the name Grindstone Design. Hamilton founded the company in 2012, and business is now so good, she has two full-time employees and the trio can barely keep up with incoming orders.
“There seems to be some interest in what we produce,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton, 29, is a graduate of Houston High School and Drury University in Springfield. She and her husband, Joe Kipp, live in her grandmother’s former home on a dirt road east of Houston, and she and her staff members – Michelle Simmons and her son-in-law Brandon Morrow – work inside a renovated machine shop behind the residence.
Wood they use comes from fallen down barns, chicken coops and various other old buildings whose time has all but passed. Hamilton said people sometimes contact her when they have a barn to tear down.
“When we run out of that, we start knocking on doors,” she said.
“When you drive down a road and see an old, gross barn that’s caving in, you have a vision,” Simmons said. “It’s great to put the wood to use when it would otherwise just be wasted.”
Hamilton also does graphic design for her parents’ Hamilton Native Outpost business, as well as Texas County Memorial Hospital, the Piney River Brewing Co. in Bucyrus and Grace Manufacturing in Plato. Before she began Grindstone Design, she tinkered with making and selling things made of various materials.
Grindstone Design owner Brooke Hamilton looks at a large supply of barn wood planks inside a storage barn adjacent to the business’ workshop.
Then she began experimenting with barn wood and things blossomed from there.
“I never planned on it being this big,” Hamilton said. “But people really wanted the barn wood and it started growing and kept growing.”
Simmons’ two daughters help on a part-time basis, packaging items for shipping. Grindstone Design products have been sent to numerous states, with California topping the list of most orders and New York second.
At least one order came from Beverly Hills, Calif.
“Not much is sold in Missouri,” Hamilton said. “There’s such a ‘can-do’ attitude here and people have access to barn wood. If they want something like this, they’re going to make it themselves rather than pay you to do it.”
“But we know when something is going to someone’s high-rise in Manhattan because the address will be 80th floor or something like that,” Simmons said. “To them, it’s a piece of art – it becomes a conversation piece. That’s pretty cool.”
Barn wood represents more to Hamilton and her coworkers than simply a material to make stuff out of. They don’t take lightly that every piece comes from an old building with a unique story and there’s a rich history behind the process of harvesting trees and making lumber to construct those buildings.
“That’s what really adds value,” Hamilton said. “We don’t make anything fancy – it’s all simple designs that let beauty of the barn wood stand out. And I love that the wood we use would probably have been burned if we hadn’t ended up with it.”
Hamilton said she’s almost “obsessed” with getting the most out of the wood she obtains.
“You have to cut off some parts that just aren’t usable,” she said, “but we try to use every bit possible.”
Hundreds of planks and pieces of barn wood are stored in a barn adjacent to the Grindstone Design workshop.
“It’s really cool to take a long, ugly board and turn it into something pretty,” Simmons said. “And useful, too; every piece we make is useful in some way.”
“Functionality is a big goal,” Hamilton said.
Included in the exclusive characteristics of each piece of barn wood are “imperfections” that Hamilton and company have come to appreciate and respect.
“That’s a challenge because you never know how much a customer is going to like knots and holes,” she said. “Sometimes we wonder if we should cut something off or if it adds to the beauty of the piece.”
In a typical month, Grindstone Design produces and ships about 150 pieces of furniture (and more than 200 during the holiday season). So far, most of the company’s products are of the small to medium variety. But that could soon change.
“We’re going toward doing bigger things like dining room tables,” Hamilton said. “Of course, that will be a challenge on the shipping end.”
Hamilton said her business experienced a lot of turnover in its early years, but things have since stabilized. Simmons has been there two years and Morrow for six months.
“It’s finally clicking,” Hamilton said, “and that makes it fun. It’s not fun when people are constantly quitting and starting. It’s nice to have the satisfaction that were producing something real and enjoying doing it.
“And it’s nice that at the end of the day to look back and have something and you ship it off and it’s done.”