By: Caroline Morris
Do either of you have a background with restoration?
Hara: We both love old stuff, we love being able to restore anything we find. Some people have an eye for fashion, we have an eye for trash. We look at stuff and see what it could be.
Daniel: I can’ t even count the amount of stuff that we have bought or found and fixed up.
Hara: All of our pieces are random, we never know what we are going to find. We don’ t have a certain theme. It’ s just whatever we see in a piece.
Do you guys just go all around Pensacola looking for pieces?
Hara: Actually, most of the trash picking we do is on our routes. With the kids, there’ s a lot of driving back and forth so everywhere we go, we try to take a different road or a different route
Daniel: Sometimes its just a drive-by. That’ s all you need to see if a piece is worth picking up. And we say trash, but it’ s all sitting by the side of the road, it’ s not like we are digging through trash or dumpster diving.
Hara: Obviously we can’ t just pick everything. It has to be a piece with good bones. Not everything is worth picking up.
Daniel: It has to be real wood. If you pick something that you have to tear apart, you just get lost in it and it’ s so hard to finish.
Hara, I know that you have an artistic background with your photography, but how about you Daniel? Daniel: Yeah, I’ m a mechanic so I work with my hands all the time. Hara: He’ s really good with the critical thinking. Obviously he’ s very artistic too, but he’ s great with the logistics. If we really need to make something happen with a piece, he can always figure out how to get it done.
Hara: Yeah you can’ t always trust someone to be as passionate about something as you.
Daniel: I also think it’ s kinda cool to just have a Mom and Pop store instead of Wal-Mart. That’ s the cool thing about Pensacola. Coming from a place like Ft. Walton Beach where everything is so commercialized, with Joe’ s Crab Shack and chain restaurants, to a place like Pensacola where there are 20 different restaurants you would never know about unless you lived here, you see that something doesn’ t have to be huge to be your favorite.
Will you guys be taking custom orders at all?
Hara: I think we will have a wish-list where people can say“ I’ m looking for something like this, if you find it let me know.” But we honestly never know what we will find.
What would you like people to know about your pieces?
Hara: We make sure that everything is completely cleaned and completely restored. We make sure there is nothing like mold growing inside or anything harmful, we have a complete disinfecting process. Everything is 100 % restored and built to last.
Daniel: We don’ t cut any corners in our processes and we use the highest quality material for all of our pieces.
Hara: When we started talking about turning this into a business, we knew it would be a great way to work together and use our hands and hopefully spread a little love in the process.
What if your demand gets really high? Will that be hard with just the two of you working on pieces? Hara: That’ s a hard thing to say. Daniel: It’ s kind of like a labor of love. How could we trust someone to put as much into the pieces as we do? We put everything into each project. It’ s not like she’ s working on one thing and I’ m working on another. We put all of ourselves into one piece until it’ s done.
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