A Rush to entrepreneurship

When young Rush Reed was born to mom, Randi Lyn, and dad, Tim, little could he know he was the inspiration for a hot product and a brand new business.

Tim and Randi Lyn Reed are the owners of a new custom furniture business that started with a non-traditional baby crib. Haus of Reed will open in its new space later this month on Greg Street in Reno. Their specialty combines traditional woodworking, metals and a proprietary GFRC, or Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete. Custom furniture is a hot topic in designs for business.

“We started this in our two car garage in Las Vegas,” says Randi Lyn, “moved into a three-car garage here, now we have this large 4000 square foot shop and Tim quit his day job six months ago. The desire to do it on our own has always been there and now we’re moving full forward. It started with the cribs, that led to a dresser which then led to an incredible outdoor patio table in our own backyard which was seen by a client friend, which then led to doing an entire restaurant and it has compounded from there.” Her pride and pleasure is palpable. Even the woodworking benches and casting tables are all made in house.

“When I came home and told Tim I was pregnant, he said, ‘I want to build the crib.’” Tim has been doing custom milling and woodwork for 22 years. “I wanted something non-traditional in design, something to stand out, and Tim created a 42-inch diameter, round baby crib using very traditional woodworking. It’s been our best seller for the online company, it’s called the Rush crib.”

“We researched all standards for cribs and exceeded them. Building for our own child, quality was a key ingredient and a major selling point. It will outlast all of us, it’s an heirloom. We put a lifetime guarantee on all of our furniture and you can’t get that from makers in China.”

Tim elaborates, “It’s all mortice and tendon wood joinery, traditional workmanship on untraditional designs. That’s true with all of our solid wood furniture, too. Adding our proprietary GFRC technology to the traditional wood joinery, which few people do anymore, and metal, gives us a unique product line. Randi Lyn adds, “It allows us to expand our client base and satisfy a multitude of material tastes. The fact that we design in-house and use pigment and fabric forms means we can really zero in on what the customer is looking for and deliver on it. Our model includes a custom side as well as a catalog side.” Their model also includes distribution through major retail outlets as a future goal.

Tim Reed has a vision for the Haus of Reed.

“I think you can’t just make furniture from wood, you’ve got to have some metal skills, and abilities to work with other materials like fabric and polymers. I like to use the GFRC, it’s an up and coming thing,” he says, showing off the glass fibers that run though the material, a combination of sand, aggregates, cement, glass fibers, ad mixtures and polymers. The mix design is a closely guarded secret. “Commercially available mixes are nothing close to this, this is high performance concrete, the way its cured makes it stronger and lighter. It’s not a new idea,” he says, “but the mixes have gotten much better and the science has led to it becoming much stronger and more workable. It took me about a year of working with a master of GFRC, Brandon Gore, in Phoenix, taking his workshops until I was ready to go it alone with my ideas.”

Gore gained national notoriety recently as judge on a furniture building reality TV show on the Spike network.

“He’s considered a guru, probably the top guy in the nation working with this stuff.”

“When I first saw his work it floored me, it was nothing like I’d seen before. I was a project manager for a specialty contractor and had handled millions of dollars in GFRC but I’d never seen it used in the ways he was using it and that was an inspiration for me. Different kinds of aggregates of stone, glass and other materials present creative options. It’s very tactile, soft to the touch and smooth or lightly textured and light weight. You can get it down to a one quarter inch thick and it’s still strong.”

Randi tells of slipping on ice and dropping a piece that hit the asphalt on edge without chipping or breaking. “It’s also one of the most available materials on the planet and can be mixed and molded with a rainbow of color. We also make forms in fabric, and in doing that we create a geometry you just can’t get in other materials, like smooth and flowing forms for sinks.”

Haus of Reed clients include restauranteur, Mark Estee.

The couple plan to employ up to five techs in the short term. Tim describes them as, “A small group of people that can do a little wood, metal and casting and I’ll train them. We’ll have classes down the road to teach these skills, too.”

All will have to sign non-disclosures to protect intellectual property.

“All our materials are sourced locally. American made and Nevada made,” Tim says, “We’re proud to be a part of the Maker’s Movement. It’s a way of bringing back American manufacturing”. Randi adds, “People are getting tired of disposable furniture. It’s a very specified market, and with ‘custom’ comes cost, but we are very creative about working within budgets.”

When asked if people will like the furniture his birth inspired, Rush, now almost 5, takes a moment to consider his new Gravedigger RC car, smiles big and replies “Yeah!” with enthusiasm.

Haus of Reed shop on Greg Street is open by appointment only. Call 702-506-5941, email tim@hausofreed.com, or visit the website at http://hausofreed.com/.