When I was invited to a private meet and greet with Clint Harp of Harp Design Co. and a few other local bloggers, I honestly didn’t know what to expect! I was told to bring a plus one {which was my sweet friend, Rebecca of Hello Central Avenue} and 2-3 interview questions for Clint. The “interview” would be 30 minutes long!
Did I expect a laidback, hour long lunch over gyros at the Reading Terminal Market? Um, no way!!!! It is absolutely unreal and I am still pinching myself over the whole experience! Clint could not have been more kind and humble and it was literally like having lunch with an old friend. We talked about everything from his journey and how he got to where he is today to Chip and Joanna to his favorite piece of furniture he ever made! Here is little recap of my lunch with Clint! A lunch I will soon not forget!
HIS JOURNEY {AND THE DAY HE MET CHIP}
Clint’s journey is truly an amazing one! After quitting his job in Houston to pursue his passion and to start building a business with his wife, they moved to Waco after she got a full scholarship to Baylor to work on her Masters Degree. Clint began volunteering for Habitat for Humanity while he was looking for a shop for their new business. I did ask him if he had a passion for carpentry and building furniture and he said his grandad was a builder and it was something that he was always around and something he always wanted to do, he just didn’t know how to get started and own his own business. Clint did say they had some knowledge of running a business because Kelly had built her own children’s clothing line a few years back and they took that and built on from it for Harp Design Co. After moving to Waco, they had dinner with some friends who knew a guy named Chip and they said you should call this guy when you are ready to find a shop. Clint said he called Chip a few days later and he never called him back. After four months of living in Waco, they had run out of money and he literally said “this was a dumb idea”, he didn’t know why he thought he could start some business. Clint talked to us about “his day of reckoning” where he woke up and was like “I need to find a job, this isn’t working and I need to figure something else out”. He called his wife and said…”this is a total failure, I need to find a job”…and she told him to wait before you do anything and let’s go to the park. Clint said he was like, ok…that sounds like a crazy idea and I don’t know why we would go to the park…but they took their kids and afterwards they got in their car, the gas light comes on so they stop to get some gas. Clint said he was sitting there at the gas pump and a black truck pulls up in front of him and it says Magnolia Homes on the side. He said to his wife, isn’t that the company I was calling and Kelly says yes, I think so. He got out and said to the guy that he had called the company calling for some guy named Chip and the guy said…I’m Chip. From there they talked, Chip invited him to his shop and they talked for 3 hours in his truck. A couple of nights later, he went over to their house for dinner and he met Jo. He said that this was all in February or March of 2012 and at that time Chip didn’t know anything about the future of the show or anything like that! He ended up doing some furniture for a show Jo was having at her house in May of that year. Clint mentioned that when he sold that furniture at that show it was the first money he had made in a year! The show came about and the rest is history! Talk about chasing your dreams and pursuing your passions and the cards aligning that day when him and Clint met at those gas pumps!
HIS RELATIONSHIP JO
We initially joked about my chicken scratch drawings of furniture that I often show my handy hubby Aaron when I want him to a build a piece of furniture and how I don’t have a “Book of Jo”! He told us about a funny Mad Max Magazine cartoon sketch that came out a few years ago referring to Joanna and her “book of Jo” sketches with Clint and how in the sketch it was a line or two and next to Clint was an ornate piece of furniture! I actually remember seeing that on social media a few years back! He said that is kind of what happened in real life! It was literally some ideas sketched on the side with some dimensions and stain color and general notes and then Clint would take it from there! He said it really was because they built a great designer/builder relationship before the cameras all started rolling 6 months or so before. Joanna would come by the shop and ask him to build something and they developed this little line of furniture that she would sell in her shop that she had and he admitted they never sold any of it. He really said it was because no one was coming to Waco at that time! We chatted at how much Waco has changed and that it truly is nuts as to what she has done!
He talked about how since they already had a great designer/builder relationship that when the cameras started rolling she would kind of just walk in and he knew what she wanted. He did refer to one episode at the end of season 2, and I remember this one clearly, about a farmhouse table she had him build that had blue legs. He told us a bit of the behind the scenes story. As things got more crazy with the show, she had more design assistants at the time and more people helping. He mentioned this was a rare time when he actually worked with someone else on a piece and not directly with Joanna. He said the assistant said that Joanna wanted it to be blue and distressed and to use chalk paint….he said he told her felt that he knew Jo well enough to know that she didn’t want chalk paint but he ended up doing it. Clint told us as soon as he delivered it, he knew immediately that she hated it! Long story short, she ended up painting the table white and he said he just knew it and should have gone with his gut. A mistake he would never make again!
ON HIS FAVORITE PIECE OF FURNITURE HE EVER MADE
I was curious as to what his favorite piece of furniture he ever made was! After all the pieces he built over the years, I knew there had to be one that just stuck out in his mind or one piece he would never get rid of. The first two pieces he ever made, a table and an armoire for Kelly were made with a chop saw, a drill and a circular saw as they were the only tools he had at the time. He said he went to Home Depot and bought some wood and just made them. Clint told us he finished them and even did them all wrong! He said he didn’t even wipe the stain off! He just applied it and let it dry! He said he still has the table and armoire to this day and he took pictures of them both and took them to his grandfather. Clint told us how his grandfather called him back the next day and told him he needed some real tools if you are really going to ever do this and he sent him a check a month later for $1250 and he bought a table saw, a drill press, a bunch of hand tools and some other stuff from Home Depot. Clint said those were the tools that years later he broke out of the back of his garage and built Harp Design Co. off of!
ABOUT THE BUSINESS NOW
I did ask him with the success of the business now, does he still have a hand in building everything. He said it’s definitely a transition for him and right now, he doesn’t have a shop of his own where he can just go and build something or come up with a new prototype or make something that he has just been wanting to make. Clint told us it’s partly because he just doesn’t want to get in the way of the business. They have 30 employees now and 10 of those are in the shop building large and small goods. Right now they are in the process of expanding their shop. He did mention that he wrote his book, “Handcrafted” that he could have rewrote the title to “It’s Not About the Furniture” only because he said he just loves building SOMETHING and he loves the idea of taking something from nothing and turning it into something great! Clint told us with his business right now he just happens to be in the phase of growing it to the next shop. He said he is still very hands on in terms of all the small and large goods, tweaking things constantly and teaching things to people in the shop every chance he has. He told us his role is very different than it was in the beginning, it was just him and he was under a pile of sawdust at all times. We talked about how now he also has a bigger business role and sometimes he just looks out in the shop and wants to be out there in the sawdust.
We did talk about his show, “Wood Work” which premiered last year on the DIY Network. He told us to stay tuned since Scripps Network was bought out by Discovery they are kind of in limbo right now! Here’s hoping for more seasons to come!
We ended the lunch with a quick walk back to the Philadelphia Convention Center as Clint made it within minutes of his first presentation! It truly was such a fun lunch and I enjoyed getting to know more about Clint and his inspirational journey.
We had such an amazing time with Clint! Thank you again to Clint and his team at Harp Design Co. for the opportunity!
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