Conversations with Thomas Harvey

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Harvey.

Hi Thomas, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I have always been creative, the kid who was always building forts or making something. In high school and college, I spent a lot of time painting and sculpting. Fine art moved into industrial design, which is what I ended up with a degree in.

During design school, I really fell in love with wood as a medium and started making and selling furniture to family and friends, so when I graduated, it was natural to keep going. I have been in business ever since, although, for most of that time, I was just self-employed.

About 8 years ago, I started taking building a business seriously, and I have realized how important it is to have a sound business and not just a great product. Currently, we still do some furniture, but our focus is on designing and building custom doors.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been smooth! The downturn in 2010 caused me to briefly shut the doors and get a job working as a commercial carpenter. The last four years have been really difficult as well. Covid turned off our sales like a faucet for about 6 months.

Since then, I have also been facing one thing after another in terms of circumstances, including a serious pneumonia that took about nine months to fully recover from. We have faced difficulties with shop space and personnel changes as well. All of this in a market that was boom or bust but never solid or predictable.

I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My passion is to create delightful works with beautiful wood. I love taking a project from concept to completion and delivering lasting value that will please generations.

One look at our work shows that we have a unique design approach and are not bound by convention or even what is simple to draw on paper, but love to think deeply about how to truly fulfill the purpose of what we are doing.

With doors, this means not only making sure it’s a good door functionally, which can be very technically demanding on some of our projects, but also making sure that it is emotionally satisfying and a joy to have in a house or any other building. I love making things for people, and I keep this in mind. Form follows function can be very mechanical; form follows purpose and is very human.

What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is making sure that what I do is pleasing to my Creator. I look at every part of it as an act of worship. There is so much here… Suffice it to say that everything good in me is a gift from God through Jesus Christ. It is the least I can do to work in a way that glorifies Him.

Of course, this includes the second commandment, which is “love your neighbor as yourself.” Truly seeking to do what is best for the people I am creating for, the other artisans and designers that I work with, and the suppliers that I buy from. These relationships are what makes truly beautiful work possible, work that is a blessing to all involved.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.EarthwoodDesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthwooddenver/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@earthwooddesignco/videos

Image Credits
Thomas Harvey and Garlic Media