He Drives Furniture Across the Country. Here's What That Has to Do With Your Living Room.

I want to tell you something I noticed about the way Christopher Dean described a hiking trail.

He was on a rock scramble in Shenandoah National Park, somewhere in the kind of landscape that makes you stop walking and just look, and he noticed something. A large rock balanced on smaller tapering boulders beneath it. His brain did what his brain apparently does constantly, even on trails, even mid-hike, even when the sensible thing would be to just look at the mountain and feel something uncomplicated.

It thought: huh. What if that was the base of a cabinet?

That detail became the feet on the Shenandoah Liquor Cabinet. Which you can buy. Which someone somewhere is currently living with, running their hand along, probably without knowing it came from a moment of attention on a trail in Virginia.

That is the thing I keep thinking about when I think about Christopher's work. Not the joinery, though the joinery is extraordinary. Not the materials, though he resaws his own veneers in-house, which is a level of commitment to craft that most people in any field have quietly abandoned in the name of speed. What I keep thinking about is the quality of attention that goes into a piece before a single cut is made.

It is the same quality of attention I try to bring to a session. The one that asks: what are you actually drawn to, even if you can't explain why yet? What has your eye been returning to before your brain had a chance to talk you out of it?

Christopher and I are solving the same problem from opposite ends of it. I help people get clear enough to choose something worth keeping. He builds the thing worth choosing. This conversation is about what happens on his side of that equation, and why it matters more than most of the furniture industry wants you to think.

Image | the handholdstudio-The Cascade

The beginning that wasn't a story

Christopher: I formed my little handcrafted woodworking biz in Richmond, Virginia in 2015, but went full time in 2016. There wasn’t a major idea or a crazy awesome story like some people have. I’m a serial hobbyist, and I absolutely hated the work I was doing before this. I decided to pursue my self-employment + creativity and just dumped everything I had into it.

Woodworking just stuck as the thing that I could do for a paycheck! At the time, it just didn’t seem feasible to build my next closest dream at the moment, which was a Mercantile I’d name “Foraged + Fermented”, and it’d be filled with food, ingredients, and alcohol all foraged for and processed in-house. It’s still not fully off-the-table, hah!

In 2016 or so, most of the woodworking I was doing was rudimentary, with no joinery or complex design. Just the type of work that required me to do farmers markets, craft fairs, etc. It was fun while it lasted, but didn’t feel sustainable for my personality type. Just before moving away from Richmond, one of the last major events I got to be a consumer at was the Craft + Design show in Main Street Station. I saw a local furniture maker’s work that just absolutely blew me away — in his booth I felt I’d walked into my dream, that someone else was already living. That maker was Daniel Rickey, of Daniel Rickey Furniture.

In 2019, I packed up my shop and followed a job opportunity my wife had landed, which moved us to Eugene, Oregon. Once I was on this coast, things shifted for me as I became more interested in furniture + design. After DRF, makers like The Roaring Woodwork, Beauty & Bread Woodshop,TomFoolery Wood Co, Hambuilt, and proximity to material suppliers like Goby Walnut & GL Veneer — my mind just began going wild on the creativity and possibilities in finely handcrafted furniture.

It’s been a long journey to executing the place I’ve taken this thing to, now. It’s been slow at times and fast at others. It’s had its bumps & potholes, but it started as a dream and I’ve built it with my own two hands (+ the support of many people coming in to be my proverbial “village”).

I’m just a guy out here, still a serial hobbyist, and playing with ideas and creation within my realm now.

What I love about this origin is its refusal to be tidy. No lightning bolt moment. No childhood memory of watching a grandfather in a workshop. Just a person who hated what he was doing, loved making things, and decided to find out if one could become the other. The fact that it took years to get from farmers markets to the work he makes now is not incidental. It is the whole point. The craft he has now was built inside the time it took to get here. You cannot shortcut your way to that level of specificity. The tapered feet on the Shenandoah exist because he spent years making things that didn't yet have tapered feet, and learning enough about what he loved to finally know why they needed to be there.

Image | thehandholdstudio-The Palisade Cabinet

What it means when a piece has a name

Christopher: The first thing that most would notice about my furniture is that they almost all bear names of National Parks or prominent natural structures within them; the Shenandoah Liquor + Wine Cabinet, the Rainier Cabinet, and so on. Most of my work is inspired by the things that I see while I’m out in nature (I’m an avid National Park-er), mixed with a lot of the design styles that I see within the creatives who I respect.

The Shenandoah, as an example; is strongly inspired by softer rolling mountains, the top of the cabinet features a soft curved profile that makes me think of the Blue Ridge Mountains that I grew up around. The tapered feet on that cabinet are a design decision I made after a hike in Shenandoah National Park — there was a rock scramble and I had thought “Huh, nature just put this big rock on top of these little skinny, tapering boulders and that works??” It stuck.

There are a lot of nuanced details and personal life experiences like that built into my works. A big difference in my furniture compared to some others I see is how I encourage (and don’t charge extra) for customization. Almost every piece I have ever built has been customized because of it, too.

I know that my pricing can cause accessibility issues just due to its handcrafted nature and needing to pay us a living wage for a premium product, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t come from money and I want my work to be as accessible as I can make it. I’m not upcharging for changes to designs, and after paying my (small) design fee, I take it off the final cost of the custom piece, not in addition.

I like to work with new homeowners, and people from all walks of life who are investing in their first handcrafted item made exclusively for them. A lot of what makes my furniture different is in the experience — from design to consultation, to my willingness to hand deliver nearly anywhere in the country (if my queue is slim, I’ll drive it clear across the country, truly).

I’m here for the connection between people and things, and I don’t think there’s a lot of traction just yet in that thinking. There’s the “anti-fast furniture” ideological movement, but I’m trying to go deeper and connect you to something that you can cherish.

The naming is not branding. I want to be clear about that because it would be easy to read it that way and miss what's actually happening.

When a piece is named after a landscape, after a specific trail, after a rock formation Christopher stood in front of and felt something about, it means the piece carries a memory that has nothing to do with the buyer and everything to do with the maker. That memory is in the object. Not metaphorically. Structurally. The curve at the top of the Shenandoah cabinet is the Blue Ridge Mountains as Christopher understood them on a particular afternoon. You are not buying a cabinet. You are buying someone's way of seeing.

This is why the workdoesn't look like everything else. Most furniture is designed to appeal broadly and offend no one. Christopher's pieces are designed by a specific person who has spent time in specific places and paid specific attention. That specificity is not a liability. It is the entire value.

Image | the Handhold Studio - The Shasta

How do you commission a piece of handmade furniture without knowing exactly what you want?

Christopher: This is a very fluid answer, and it’ll change based on each client; some are so ready to go, some are anxious/nervous about the process and pricing, and some truly do not know what they want. It all starts with a consultation, though. Booking my consultation (which is go-at-your-own pace), I’ll bust out the ‘ol stopwatch, and we’ll dedicate two whole hours over the course of a day, days, and weeks, to talk design + sketch + I’ll get material options and pricing together.

I have a great habit of really handholding my clients through their creative thoughts, even if they’re struggling to articulate them. For design, I lean heavily into the pieces that my client is most attracted to. Even if you don’t know if it’ll fit the aesthetic of your space or the particular use, I want to know if you’re attracted to beading, tapered details, brass, and so on. It gives me an idea of what’s going to feel warm and invite you to interact with it.

From there, I’ll sketch out a couple of options, and we’ll see what you like from them (I’m no artist, they’re fairly rudimentary, but I’m always trying to practice to have that architect/engineer level of pencil sketching, ha!).

After we feel we’re on the right track to your design, there are revisions to details until it’s just perfect. I’ve got a personality type that screams “buy once, cry once”, and I treat my business the same. I recognize that my client’s money and time are incredibly valuable and in some cases limited, and I really will dedicate myself to making a design absolutely perfect for their needs before we get started on the build.

After design, it’s pretty seamless. Purchase or finance a custom listing, or we’ll agree on payment terms of some sort (I can work within a lot of circumstances), and then I begin. I’m making everything by hand, one at a time, so it is slower than a multi-employee company, but I also benefit from having the same eyes and hands on each project. Once completed, I’ll either hand deliver or have it freighted with a white glove service to your home.

Two hours over the course of days or weeks to talk through design before a single cut is made. That is not slow. That is the only pace at which a decision this permanent can be made well.

I recognize this because it is essentially the same structure as Design Mood. Not because we planned it that way, but because two hours of genuine conversation, where someone is actually listening to what you're drawn to rather than steering you toward what's easiest to execute, is apparently the minimum viable amount of time to get to something real.

What Christopher describes, handholding clients through creative thoughts even when they're struggling to articulate them, is the exact work I do when I ask someone to describe the corner of their home they avoid without knowing why. The answer is always there. It just needs a particular kind of question to surface it.

The difference is he then goes and builds the thing with his hands. I remain slightly in awe of that.

Image | thehandholdstudio - The Revisionist Teton Credenza

What he looks at when he looks at materials

Christopher: I really recently prefer working with thick veneers, I resaw my own here in-house and have a full veneering setup to make insanely high-quality panels for projects. Otherwise, I enjoy walnut, as most do, and I love the warmth and tactile experience of incorporating brass or nickel into my work. I’m influenced by a lot of makers whose creativity and execution are top-notch; Daniel Rickey, Phil Morley, MediumSmall, J.Rusten Studio, Brockway Ayres. I’m also really inspired by the people whose designs and/or mediums are different than my own, but they’re very supportive and encouraging of my work. It reinforces that I’m doing something cool, and it pushes me forward in just tinkering around sometimes. People likeRobby Simon (@play.room), as an example.

What I notice here is that his influences are not aesthetics. They are standards. The makers he names are the ones whose execution raises his own. That is a specific kind of influence, the kind that doesn't make you want to copy something but makes you want to be better at the thing you are already doing.

This is worth paying attention to if you are trying to build a home rather than just furnish one. The things you surround yourself with set a standard for what you will tolerate in everything else. A piece made by someone who holds themselves to that level of craft does something to a room that a piece chosen for convenience cannot. It raises the conversation the room is having with itself. Everything else in the space has to answer to it. That is not intimidating. It is clarifying. One genuinely good piece has a way of making every provisional choice in the room suddenly visible for what it is.

Image | the Handhold Studio - The Teton

What he refuses to put in a piece and why it matters

Christopher: Environmental consciousness is pretty visible in my periphery, I’m always on the lookout for more sustainable wood sources, or cutting my hardwood veneers and putting in the extra labor to attach them to a more eco-friendly and superior-made substrate. My shop doesn’t do epoxy pours, at all, and I’m using natural + plant-based finishes. I try and ship my pieces in batches/deliver in batches, to reduce the carbon footprint of long trips for one thing. A lot of eco-conscious practices also are budget-friendly practices. Less trips = less fuel costs, and so on. I’m a little shop, so doing my part and also helping my budget are important.

No epoxy pours. Natural and plant-based finishes. Veneers cut in-house. Deliveries batched to reduce the number of trips.

These are not selling points deployed for a market that has decided to care about sustainability. They are the consequences of a person who has thought carefully about what he is willing to put his name on. And that distinction matters to your home in ways that go beyond environmental consciousness, though that matters too.

A piece built by someone with standards that exist independent of market pressure holds up differently than one built to a price point. Not just physically. The object carries the integrity of the decisions that went into it. You feel that in the way you feel anything that was made honestly. Not in any mystical sense. In the very practical sense that a piece built with this level of care was built to last long enough that the builder's reputation depended on it.

That accountability does not exist in fast furniture. There is no one whose name is on the thing. There is no maker who will drive it across the country and stand in your living room and want it to be right. There is just a price and a delivery window and the quiet, creeping sense, three years later, that you should have waited.

Image | the handholdstudio - The Santa Elena Fridge + Dry Bar Cabinet

What he said about community that I keep thinking about

Christopher: I’ve worked with a handful of small businesses + brands in the past, most recently Parlour & Palm, an interior design service in Portland, Oregon. I was brought in on a custom Santa Elena Wine Cabinet for a rad client. 10/10 would recommend. This April I launched a rebrand for my company, and the mission this year + moving forward is community + creativity, looking for small businesses and people in my local community + broader, to find ways to work together, publish together, and succeed together. I’d love to develop more of a local community here in Eugene the way I’ve been able to elsewhere, but I’m in this for the connection + and travel and would love to make friends and collaborative partners everywhere.

"Find yourself that person, and make sure you tell them you appreciate them. Some days people like that are the only coals keeping your fire going."

I am not going to add anything after that. Some sentences arrive already complete.

The front porch he has been building everywhere he goes

Christopher: This is something I’m still figuring out for myself, or where I fit in, honestly. I come from very deep Appalachian family roots — I grew up with stories of my dad + family in coal mines and life in “hollers”, over biscuits and fried apples. In my late teenage years, when I left home and started exploring the country as deeply as I could, I found that I was always looking to bring that little piece of quiet, slower life with me to cities, other cultural areas of the country, and so on. Now, in my 30s, I think I’m just getting to a point of realizing that I can take those slow-down ways of life with me into my faster-paced world, and build a community around my own little metaphorical “front porch”. In my designs, I have long called some of my work “Mountain-Modern”, like, for years now. Some of my works have been directly inspired by old pieces I’d seen in old mountain homes, where practicality and pragmatism mattered more to people than embellishment or frivolity.

I grew up far from coal mines and mountain hollers. But I understand the thing Christopher is describing about carrying a slower pace into a faster world.

Because it is exactly what I am trying to help people do inside their homes.

The home is the front porch. It is the place where you get to take the tempo down regardless of what the world outside is doing. When a room is built around the life actually being lived in it, rather than the life being performed for some imagined audience, it does what Christopher's Appalachian front porch did. It gives you somewhere to land. The design that supports that is not about aesthetics. It is about pace. About the quality of attention a space asks you to bring to it.

Mountain-Modern is his name for that. The M.I.N.D. Method is another name for it. Different languages for the same refusal to let the speed of everything else dictate how you inhabit your own four walls.

Image | the handholdstudio-Shenandoah Liquor Cabinet

What the customer experience actually is

Christopher: It’s everything. I’m the Handhold Studio, after all. I want this to be a lifelong and permanent connection between you, your work, and myself. A never-ending collaboration, in a sense. I do offer customization options; material options, finish options (for color/stains sometimes I bring in outside, more expert help), pricing structures, dimensional changes, and so on. The possibilities for customization are truly endless.

A lifelong and permanent connection between you, your work, and himself.

That is not a retention strategy. That is a person who has built his entire practice around the understanding that the relationship between a maker and the person who lives with what they made is not incidental to the work. It is the work itself.

This is what I mean when I say the pieces that stay are different from the pieces that simply arrived. A piece built in this way, with this level of consultation and this level of genuine investment in whether it is right for you, becomes part of how you understand your home. Part of how you understand yourself in it. Not because it is precious. Because it was made by someone who cared whether it fit your life before he cared whether it fit his portfolio.

What he wants next, said without inflation

Christopher: My future aspirations would be just to thrive within the means that I aim for. I want to make a stable living wage doing what I love, nothing else matters. I’ve no lofty goals of hitting the 7 figure years like influencers push, and I’ve got no goals to compete or surpass others. I want to work with people, be happy at the end of my day, and feel proud of the work that I do.

I’ve got a few exciting designs in the queue this year, particularly a new line of plywood-centric furniture (so you can paint it yourself), as well as completely new designs to be added to my permanent rotation of works. I see my brand evolving to fit into this mentality more with time. The rebrand I just went through helped to immediately shift the message and my goals, and I see things growing toward that. More collaboration, more quality, more client-collaborative pieces, deeper relationships.

A stable living wage doing what he loves. Nothing else matters.

I find this more radical than it sounds. We are not supposed to say that. We are supposed to want the seven figures, the scale, the market capture. We are supposed to frame ambition as expansion. Christopher has decided that the size of a dream is not measured in revenue. It is measured in whether you are proud of what you made at the end of the day.

That philosophy is in the furniture. The person who approaches their work that way makes things differently than the person who is trying to hit a number. And if you are trying to build a home that will hold up over time, surrounding yourself with objects made by people who think this way is one of the most reliable decisions you can make.

Image | the handholdstudio-Shenandoah Liquor Cabinet (Quarter Sawn White Oak)

What he said to entrepreneurs that I want to say to you

Christopher: For woodworkers, look to people whose work you love, and identify the parts that you love. *No one* is making new/original things with wood, at this point, we’re all just combining and evolving the things that we love to make something authentic to our styles. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, find help, etc. I’m always here to help problem solve or support design or execution for up-and-comers. Motivation can be hard. For some businesses, it seems very easy. My work has been lonely, and tiring at times. For me, always looking for my community has helped me keep my head in the right place. Tracy (@hellodaisymade) is a great example of someone I rely on for a little kick when I’m just in a rut — when I’m just really in a funk, I think all business owners and creatives need a network of people, (or in atleast one person) that can read that downward mental/motivation trajectory and help realign them to their goals. Find yourself that person, and make sure you tell them you appreciate them. Some days people like that are the only coals keeping your fire going.

Find yourself that person. Make sure you tell them you appreciate them. Some days they are the only coals keeping your fire going.

I am not adding anything after that. Some sentences do not need company.

A maker's work always carries more than design choices. It carries pace. Attention. The accumulated standards of someone who decided, years ago, that the thing they made with their hands would be worth the hands that made it.

Christopher and I are on opposite sides of the same work. He builds the piece worth keeping. I help you get clear enough to choose it. The enemy we are both working against is the same one: the culture that says a home is something you manage until you can afford to do it properly, when the truth is that doing it properly starts with a single honest choice made from the right place.

You can find Christopher's work at @thehandholdstudio and reach him directly through his studio. Mention ARDISENOSTUDIO and use the code ARDISENO10 for a courtesy discount.

And if you want to get clear on what you actually want before you commission anything or spend anything at all, that is exactly where Design Mood begins. Two hours. One honest conversation. The clarity that makes every decision after it, including one with a maker like Christopher, worth the investment.