[garage door opening]
[saw whirring]
- This whole project started
because I wanted a piece of art in my own home
that I couldn't afford to buy.
[gentle acoustic music]
[saw whirring]
It kinda happened accidentally.
I saw a piece of artwork.
It was a barn wood flag
behind JJ Watt's Defensive Player of the Year trophy.
I wanted it really bad, and I couldn't afford it.
[saw whirring]
I knocked on farmers' doors until I had
the gray and the red and the white.
I made it for myself one night,
and like anybody does, they post it on social media.
By morning, I had orders for 12 flags.
It took off almost, actually, literally overnight.
I started with zero tools.
I had to buy a couple tools to start,
and I had to borrow a few tools to start.
I made that flag with zero training.
[guitar music]
I reclaim barns.
I try to use every bit of that in artwork.
It takes 250 hours to take a barn down piece-by-piece.
I start from the top, and I take the shingles off,
and I recycle them.
And then, I go to the roofing boards.
And then, the siding boards.
The brown is the roofing, and the red is the siding,
and all the gray is the beams.
I love seeing the grain of the wood.
[saw whining]
I can smell the dairy barn
where I cut the wood from a parlor,
and I can smell the tobacco
when I cut that wood from a tobacco barn.
I feel like almost every piece is my favorite piece
for a week or two
until I make my next favorite piece.
[upbeat acoustic music]
True Coffee in Monona has maps.
It was-- That architect came to me,
and they wanted to tell the story
of where the coffee beans came from,
from around the world.
The original design of Madison's city flag,
and that was important to me.
This is iconic.
I thought, I'll see if I can't make
an old-fashioned out of wood.
People love this one.
This is who we are.
I've always been big into history.
I've always been big into the bigger story.
[acoustic guitar music]
I try to keep that story alive
by putting all that information on the back
with pictures of the barn.
[waves lapping]
I try to find the oldest person attached to that property.
These guys have fantastic stories.
[chuckles]
- Ron: Made a form on the floor.
It was a mess. [chuckles]
- Jeremiah: Honest, sharp character,
and I call them up.
- Ron: And he asked a bunch of questions.
- So who did the building?
- Ron: My Uncle Pete, and my father, and myself.
I was a junior in high school.
We didn't know nothing but work when we were young.
A guy bought it to develop.
They'd just bulldoze her down.
Jeremiah saved it.
[chuckles]
- Jeremiah: It turned out that I used almost
Ron's entire barn
to build this tasting room.
The rafters made all of the tables and the benches,
and the beams made the bar.
The roofing boards are all the walls.
Gosh, I basically tore it apart
and put it back together in a different order.
Got to celebrate 87th birthday at the bar
that he chopped down the trees in 1946.
To see his eyes was a pretty great thing.
- They invited the whole family down there.
It was very nice.
We got a little replica of the barn that Jeremiah made.
- We're a unique group of people,
and...
and we love Wisconsin.
These barns were hand-built
by someone in the '20s or the '30s,
or the 1890s,
and that story is important to a lot of people.
[tapping wood]
[tracing]
[exhales audibly]
[acoustic guitar music]
I get to give that wood new life.
[miter saw whirring]
I never expected this to be a business.
I've tried to start businesses,
a lot of businesses, and failed every time.
[bandsaw whirring quietly]
And this one was a complete accident.
I saw a piece of artwork, and I just,
I really had to have it.
It's super cliche to say,
"Make your passion your job
and never work again a day in your life."
Gosh, I love the fact that I can come to work
and do something like that.