Updates From My Home & Heart 🤎

Hello, my name is Justin Comins and I am the maker behind Wylie’s Wood and Leather. Over the past few months, you have received emails about our pieces, and going into the holidays (and beyond) I wanted to start sharing more about what fuels my passion to create and the remarkable people in and around the company. 

I thought it might be fun to tell you about a recent experience I had with my oldest daughter. After all, my wife and two daughters are the cornerstone of what I do. 

It was a Friday and school was closed for the day. I had wrapped up work on a custom piece and figured I’d get a head start gathering the materials for my next job, a wooden bench with all wood joinery. I thought this would be a great opportunity tto show my oldest my favorite place in Los Angeles, Bohnhoff Lumber. If you are a woodworker in LA, this is the be all and end all for lumber. My oldest daughter (who has not shown a great deal of interest in what dad does) was more interested in watching TV or doing anything else but head down to the yard with me. After a lively discussion with her surrounding screen time, I was able to get her to hop in the truck. The long, traffic riddled ride didn’t help my case and even once we had parked it was like pulling teeth to get her out of her seat. As we walked across the road towards the yard I was thinking, how am I going to get this task accomplished if she was so against being there? Two things happened within a few short moments, that completely turned the trip around. 

First, I realized I was there with a purpose and on a mission. In her mind, she was there to just tag along. I looked at her and asked her if she would help me with my measurements and also selecting the best pieces of wood. I quickly explained how vital it is to get a good eye on each piece to find the timber with the least bends and bows (not going to a big box store for wood dramatically reduces this concern). Now she had her own mission that was crucial to us being there.

Second, the other turning point was due to the astounding visuals around us. She was wide-eyed and mesmerized by the huge fork lifts moving massive pallets of exotic and domestic lumber and industrial machines planing and sawing timber. Her curiosity was on fire, eager to explore the space and ask a million questions about all the different species of wood. Multiple times she took my tape measure with the hopes of helping me measure the lengths of various rough boards. She had never used my tape so the quarters, eights, and sixteenths were a bit of a head scratcher for her; but to be fair, it can be for all of us now and again. The important thing was that we were both having a blast together and working together to accomplish the same goal. 

I bought the materials we went there for and we both departed with a shared experience that expanded who we both are. Experiences like this, where I have the opportunity to press pause on a tv screen and take my kids to places of wonder, show them how people can build beautiful furniture out of stacks of raw materials, or encouraging them to fire up our dulled connection between our minds and hands, are what fuels Wylie’s.  

I’m looking forward to sharing more with you next month.