Taking The PLUNGE!

Times are crazy… man if that saying isn’t truer now than it’s ever been. Despite all the crazy, we have decided to “take the plunge” … Starting in August Zach is taking Fuse Steel and Wood FULL TIME! We are excited, anxious, a little nervous, but above all we are READY! Here are a few things we have planned as we transition our side hustle into Zach’s full time gig:

We’ve opened an Etsy Shop! You can find various small items for sale on our page here: Fuse Steel And Wood Esty Shop. Our first item shipped last week… wahoo!

We are in the process of setting up our booth at Fredericksburg Trade Days! We are located in Barn #5 and our first show will be next weekend July 17-19, 2020. We plan to keep the booth for a while as long as things go well there.

Zach is actively seeking out and already getting some custom orders! If you have something you need… furniture, fencing, gates, home decor… heck, even handy man work done around your house…. let us know! Once we hit August the turnaround time will be much quicker on custom projects.

We are working on some new, fun items (some of which are already available on our etsy shop and some we’ll be adding soon). Keep a lookout!

We are on the lookout for more craft shows that we want to attend throughout the year. If you know of a good show that we should look in to, please drop us a line.

We are so excited and thank you all for your continued support!

-Zach, Kelly & our little Wren Bird

Somewhere In Between

Fuse Steel & Wood is our side hustle (that's what the hip kids call it these days, right?). It's more than a hobby at this point, but it's certainly not a full time gig (although one day we'd like it to be). Right now we are somewhere in between. 

We realize that we have to start somewhere and we'd rather build something responsibly than to jump in feet first and lose big. We're all for taking risks, but we want to make calculated, solid decisions and do it while keeping our debt free status (we started Dave Ramsey-ing a couple years ago and it's important to us to keep that up while we continue to save big for our future). Also (and it's a big ole also), we welcomed a precious little girl into our world in March - by far the biggest life changer we could have ever imagined - which makes planning for our future infinitely more important. 

All that being said, we recently sat down and evaluated what we want Fuse to be. We want to build the business for sure - but we felt like we needed to outline what it is we want to do. We wanted to share our mission, vision and a few goals we are working towards - so you can keep us honest. Feel free to call us out if we're falling short! 

FUSE MISSION:
to connect with people seeking one of a kind products and bring their ideas to life
FUSE VISION:
to inspire creative thinkers and build a larger appreciation for handcrafted goods

One of our goals was to start doing artisan and craft fairs - we recently completed the Redbud Artisan Market in Dripping Springs and it was a great experience. Check out a few of the photos from our booth below! We'd love to do some more shows and have some in mind that we're interested in. If you've been to a good show lately and think we should look in to getting a booth - please do comment on this post or shoot us a message. We'd also love feedback on what items you think we should try to bring to our next show. As for other goals, we are going to work on building our inventory, doing more custom orders, posting regularly to instagram/facebook and improving our shop!  

Thanks for reading, we appreciate your support. Until next time...

-ZaK

Zach's Shack

Our newest project is intended to serve a couple purposes. Zach is building a storage/work shed in our backyard and I've affectionately nicknamed it "Zach's Shack." Number one, it's for storage... lots of tools, materials and all those fun things filling up the garage will soon be in the Shack (yay!). Number two, it's a new work space for Zach... more space for more projects. Number three, it's going to have a porch... where I've already decided there will be some bright colored Adirondack chairs and probably (okay, honestly pretty positively) some more potted plants (shhh, don't tell Zach - it's supposed to be a manly shack for all things manly). I also want there to be a hammock, another flower bed, a firepit and picnic table in the general vicinity of the shack's porch - but we can discuss that more later.  Any who, we're both pretty excited about it (for different reasons, obviously) and it's coming along nicely! 

Reclaimed antique sheets of tin

We've been talking about the backyard shed basically since we bought the house, but we got a little kick start a couple weeks ago. We visited my aunt and uncle for an Easter fish fry and they had a cool new tin entry gate/fence at their place. We got to chatting about it and, lo and behold, they had a whole mess of this tin they'd gotten from an old building. Talk about jackpot, they wouldn't let us pay them a dime for it and even helped load it all up. Thanks Dennis and Shar-Shar (so my aunt's name is Sharon, but I nicknamed her when I was a toddler, and it's weird for me to call her Sharon, so don't judge me)! Anyway, this stuff is just perfect for Zach's shack and he has some great ideas for a barn-door in the front and hinged windows in the back. 

Moving along.... so now that we had free tin, we had enough already saved in our budget to buy the rest of the materials needed to get the project started.  Instead of trying to talk you through the details, why don't you just take a little peek at what we're working towards ...

So here's where we are at now: we've leveled up the ground and put down a pad topped with crush granite, set all the corner posts and have quite a bit of the framing up. When I say we, I primarily mean Zach... and his brother Josh, who has helped us out a bunch. Thanks Josh! Now we've just got to construct the roof, put up the tin, figure out the barn-door, add the porch and a few other details... good thing Josh will be back to help next week. Here's a little snapshot of where we're at right now. I'll post updates as we progress. 

Thanks for reading! -ZaK