Behind the Scenes - 1/31/25

Dear Friends,

For those who are new to our emails, I try to do an email once a week where I go into the details of what is happening behind the scenes of our small business. If you want to catch up on prior messages, check out the blog here or just jump right into the story below.

As the fans of the podcast heard this week, we are in renovation mode. With the new equipment need for pen production, space must be made. So we are once again rearranging the furniture to try to find just a bit more floor space.

Now this isn't the first time we have moved things around, in fact we have done it almost a dozen times over the last five years. Before that we were in a 2 bedroom apartment that was all of 1200 square feet, with not nearly enough power for our machines. You couldn't run the microwave while the engravers were going without tripping the breaker.

Everytime we reorganize it seems to get a bit better. I think its a side effect of the evolving production process, and a better understanding of what each location really needs to accomplish. It's hard to know how a space will actually work in reality versus how we think it will work in the blueprints. We also keep adding new functionality to the place which often requires a redesign.

This process has me thinking about my dream workshop. I actually sketched a version out in a Leather Folder a few years back, and ever since then, when I think of the future this is the way the workshop looks in my mind.

First, we currently live in rural Wisconsin. Horicon is a town of 3,000 people, and frankly I don't really want to move. That creates some natural limitations on the design of the workshop. A 40 story skyscraper for example would likely struggle to get past the zoning board. Similarly, the environment of this area creates some very real demands. Heating and cooling would have to be powerful and top notch, good insulation and efficient design would help keep costs down, and the material selection has some limitations.

With all this in mind I have come to imagine the workshop as a large classic red barn, with all the white trim and two silos next to it. It would fit right into the landscape, and we have a lot of companies in the area that specialize in metal prefab buildings of that variety. Now we would want to use advanced insulation and in floor heating with that type of building, and I would want to have a row of skylights at the peak of the building to help let in a lot of natural light, but that would magnify the challenge of climate control.

Beyond the ease and cost savings of a building like this, it has the advantage of having logical expansion methods, and is one of the few ways to make a large building without it looking extremely plain. I like the idea of the tall ceilings, and we would add wood accents to the entirety of the inside with carved flourishes. I would also want a large fireplace in the center, or maybe two on the opposite ends that would be dual use for wood or propane. They would be designed to help heat the place, but their primary purpose would be to help create a nice environment.

I think the combination of natural light, high open ceilings, and the natural wood and stone accents will help those who come into the space to have the proper mindset for the kind of work we do here. The large open floor would have a second floor that would ring the edge of the building. This allows for there to be rooms around the edge of the building for engravers, mills, painting, etc. that would be closed off and filtered for air and noise while allowing for a second floor to have offices for staff as well as a nice break room. The center of the building would be open floor to ceiling and would be where most of the assembly and manual production happened.

The Silos would actually be used for office space, and I've always dreamed of having a big office or meeting room at the top of one with the dome having a glass window at the top and a 360 degree window view out. It's the only practical way to create a space with a high vantage point out here. Now I will admit that round rooms are notoriously a pain to furnish, but we all have our cross to bear in this hypothetical reality.

Now this vision has changed a bit over time. I've come to realize that we always need more space that we expect, but I also think that if you have a good setup for the land, you can build out multiple barn style buildings that create a complex and variable use case design. Perhaps underground tunnels or shared walls would allow for easy transport and sharing of resources.

Part of the reason I'm thinking about how it would expand goes back to the podcast from a few weeks ago about the need for us to expand our product line beyond leather and pens, to include virtually everything. A company that makes products that our built to last a lifetime can only succeed, knowing that people won't need to buy a replacement for their item, by making other items that person needs. Perhaps the future of the company involves making the unbreakable glassware from east germany, or making a vacuum cleaner that is built to last forever and has parts that are easy to repair or replace if they wear out rather than throwing the whole thing away. Maybe we will make the old school washing machines or refrigerators that are still working 70 years after they were first made.

I don't know what the future holds, but I do hope that we can make this a reality. Both the building, and also the expansion of what we do, because the world needs to return to an era when the pride was in making the most durable and reliable product, not how much profit you were able to make by forcing repeat customers due to product failures. I firmly believe that a company that makes the best will succeed even if its products are expensive, because it's better to buy a good product once for $100, than to buy a $20 garbage product 5 times.

But what do you think? Do you think my idea for a workshop is plausible? If you would change it, how would you do it differently? And if you want to help us make this all a reality, a purchase of a product always goes a long way. I know you won't regret it, and if you do we now offer free returns for our US customers.

Stay tuned for more letters on Fridays in the coming weeks and be sure to go subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you like and watch the videos it helps us get promoted more by the algorithm to people who may never have heard of us.

Ever your servant,

Colin Murdy CEO/Owner

Murdy Creative Co.

Cell: 414-434-9001

MurdyCreative.Co 

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