Our Story
“From our humble roots in a one-car garage, to the operation we are today, we have never lost sight of our values. We are committed to making excellence intrinsic.”
One of our first major projects, a three-piece steel-framed, black walnut corner desk. Seen here without finish or hardware.
Scorched Earth was founded around a singular purpose, to build beautiful things. On the surface that seems like a simple premise, but often the simplest ideas are the ones that prove the most difficult to achieve, and consequently have the most impact. For better or worse, history has demonstrated this repeatedly.
Society has been seemingly built around the obsolescence of the products that get sold. Whether or not this is deliberate is outside of the scope of this discussion. What IS within the scope is how this drives our operations and informs our mission and values. Unfortunately, as manufacturing scale increases, trade-offs need to be made with the final product to allow for that scale. These can be material selection, manufacturing process, quality, or any number of other things. There is nothing wrong with a business adopting this strategy. After all, not everyone needs a hand-crafted doodad or thingamajig for every aspect of their life, and that’s okay. The other side of that coin is not everyone wants to be completely surrounded by mass-produced, disposable crap either. Scorched Earth specializes in building short runs of the things that people want, but don’t necessarily translate well to large-scale manufacturing, like products made out of actual hardwood, utilizing complex joinery. Our strategy is centered around value, not volume. Our products are centered around longevity, not necessarily repeat sales.
If you like what we’re doing and want to support our work, one of the best ways you can do that is to consider purchasing a T-shirt or poster from the Merch section of our store. For those that prefer to get their own hands dirty, we offer a selection of inexpensive project plans.