#secondlifestudios

[ctsommerville]

Behind the Scenes at PT’s Coffee

I wrote this for @secondlifestudios last year. You should try @ptscoffee if you haven’t yet. It’s delicious.

It’s no secret that we love coffee. It fuels our designers and gives our fabricators energy.

We also love local small businesses. Since we are one, we’ve always felt we’re kindred spirits.

One of those great local places is PT’s Coffee. While based in Topeka, they’ve had a local connection for years, and when they expanded to a new shop at 310 Southwest Boulevard in the Crossroads district of Kansas City, we knew we had to get in on that.

We designed and built the entire space for PT’s Crossroads. We fabricated tables, chairs, bar counters, and a few other pieces to challenge the status quo of coffee shops. The waterfall tables, made from repurposed coffee bean pallets, were designed to accentuate community and highlight the coffee itself.

The 21-foot barista bar was made from high-quality A1 walnut and features several dramatic bends, mimicking the tables.

We had a great time designing and building this space, and it’s great to see it being well-used and loved.

[ctsommerville]

Why reclaimed materials?

I wrote this for Second Life Studios a while back.

We exist to design purposefully built spaces with repurposed materials.

Why repurposed materials? We believe they have a compelling narrative. When we tear down a barn, we see history. Doors, loft, ladders, and floorboards have all seen a hundred years of service. We also see future.

That barn in Seneca we tore down a few months ago had outlived its usefulness as barn, but the materials still had life in them. Oak, walnut, and pine are resilient.

After days of crowbars, chainsaws, pliers, and planers, that wood is ready to be made into a beautiful space again. Not just by plunking down a couple beams in the middle of a room, but by strategically researching and designing a space so that it’s not only beautiful, but architecturally sound.

And it’s not just beautiful because of the color or grain, although both are gorgeous. It’s not just beautiful because of the inspired design or unique elements, although both are true of our work. It’s beautiful because it’s a second life. Second chances speak to us and our longing for redemption. Reclaiming those materials isn’t just about what’s trendy, it’s about pointing to something in our souls that longs for renewal.

We hope to point to that longing for reclamation in everything we put out. That’s why our name is Second Life Studios.

[ctsommerville]

Why the Tiny House is a Big Deal

I wrote this for Second Life Studios a few months ago. 

We built a Tiny House.

We built it on a custom flatbed trailer, it’s under 300 square feet, and the cedar rain screen is as functional as it is beautiful. The fully custom interior features saw-tooth dormers and bed loft and a custom headboard with indirect ambient lighting.

The tiny home trend has been blazing through newspapers and Pinterest, leaving a trail of equal parts “We should do that!” and “Who would want that?!”

But the trendiness and novelty are not the only reasons we built it.

We built it because we wanted to create a functional space worth living in. We believe in reclaiming nouns (people, places, things). Without places, things lack context. And without people, places lack meaning. We designed this house for the Averills to live in, not just to make good TV.

This speaks to our value of reclaiming unwanted space here in Kansas City. The tiny house will make a small unused lot usable again. It also takes the idea of living space and brings it into the realm of higher design. It is also provocative, and provocation is one of our core values. The status quo was meant to be broken.

[secondlifestudios]

We Love Building, Part 3

See the previous part here.

Mitch Trumpp, our Fabrication Director, has built hundreds of items. Tables, chairs, doors, bars, cabinets, and more. And it all started with an iguana cage.

Growing up in a house of woodworkers, Mitch built everything from that cage to duck blinds and a catfish trap in shop classes. “I was a goofball though. I didn’t learn much long term.”

Mitch started woodworking with his grandfather, a professional. “I went out to his farm outside Manhattan [Kansas] once or twice a week and built with him. He used to sit in the chair and make sure I didn’t cut my hand off.”

“It was the first time I saw a difference between hobby and a business. For the rest of my life, that time will be one of the highlights.”

Mitch got inspired by classics like Norm Abram and his first “mentor,” Brian Holland. “He really showed me what quality is.”

After college, Mitch traveled to Indonesia on a business internship. “I learned that instead of just seeking to make profits, business could be about loving and serving the local people.”

“My plan was to come back [to America], get married, go back overseas, and start a business. But a mentor said, ‘Why not start one here?’ The only thing I could think of was woodworking.”

So Mitch started Adventure Indoors Woodworking.

“Everything was rustic. It was all barnwood and logs. But, it was a tough market because I made everything by hand. My first customer outside my family wanted a glass top coffee table, and when he picked it up he said ‘Man, that’s badass.’”

Mitch was then connected with Ryan Henrich, a founder of Second Life Studios that has since left to found several other businesses in Kansas City.

“Someone connected us and we met up at a coffee shop in Kansas City, so he was Ryan Latte in my phone. He still is to this day.”

Ryan and Mitch later hooked up with Chris Gorney, Second Life’s Creative Director, and they got the Sony Music job. Mitch calls this the Mount Everest moment for Second Life Studios.

Mitch loves working with wood and building stuff “because I still feel very confident in the potential to influence lives through woodworking and through business. We’ve only scratched the surface.”

“If we do it right, there’s a chance that 100, 200 years from now, we could still be a company to influence the people and the city. I get stoked about helping create spaces that foster relationship and memorable experiences.”

“Especially at PT’s Coffee. People have accepted jobs at those tables. People have gotten engaged at those tables.”

“I love the role that the atmosphere and furnishing can serve as a catalyst for those memorable experiences.”

[secondlifestudios]

We Love Building, Part 2

See the previous part here.

High school might have sucked for most people, but for Derek Combs, our shop foreman, it's where he found his calling.  

"I took a shop class my freshman year. It was taught by John Slinkard who was a bank of knowledge on life and woodworking." Derek took as many shop classes as he could and even became the teacher's aide.

"I went to college for photography and minored in industrial design, but I realized I didn't want to do photography for a living. Building seemed like a natural progression. I've always wanted to customized everything I have for myself anyway. I love to tinker."

After building bookshelves and tables in a friend's garage for awhile ("We just built whatever we thought was cool."), Derek started work in the finishing department of a local manufacturer. After a few years of that, he began working here at Second Life Studios. “I loved working on República especially. There is so much cool stuff on the bar and back bar. It was a great build.”

"I've always liked making stuff. When I making things, I like to trace the process back as far as possible. I want to get as close as I can to Step One."

Derek follows the work of Jory Brigham and Sam Maloof for inspiration. "Sam Maloof is a giant bank of spiritual and woodworking knowledge. I think he said 'The things I make are for other people, but the way I make them is for myself.' I like that. I think building stuff is enjoyable, but I'm not curing cancer or anything like that."

Working at Second Life Studios has been a bit of a surprise. "At first, I hated the reclaimed pine and other barnwood, but after working and becoming more familiar with it, it comes out unique and awesome-looking. The process is just a nightmare." Our exact process is a secret, of course, but the denailing alone takes several days for a batch of barnwood.

"You could work at 100 places and not feel cared for the way I do at Second Life. We may be making a table, but we're also making income for 10 friends and their families."

[secondlifestudios]

We Love Building

Inspiration comes from everywhere. We follow woodworkers and designers on Instagram, read architecture books, and even glance at each other's sketches (shhhh).

But when Lead Craftsman Skyler Masters cranks up Led Zeppelin or Outkast, that's when he truly gets inspired.

"I've loved art for a long time. I went to school for graphic design but I hated sitting in front of the computer. I really wanted to do sculpture and film photography and I wanted to do my own thing. I didn't want to do the computer so I picked up the hammer."

Skyler started an apprenticeship under a jack-of-all-trades sculptor. "I started building a lot of furniture with him. I didn't do a whole lot of welding back then, just stuff for friends and family. But I got a lot of confidence out of welding something up. The combo of sculpting and geometric design and function was amazing. I got heavy into furniture because it was useful art."

Skyler is our main metalworker. He's created everything from dozens of hairpin table legs to a massive nine-foot tall and 20-foot long feature wall at the new Jack Stack in Lee's Summit. "I love working with steel. I love knowing that everything I'm making will be here forever. That means I can't do a bad job. I have to make it worth making."

And like a true badass welder, Skyler gets his inspiration from badass sources. "I'm mostly influenced by other artists, not just metalworkers. Music drives me to make cool stuff. Anything original, like Tool or Pink Floyd or Outkast or of course Zeppelin. I also get inspired by reading. I think it really furthers the mind, and that's what I try to do with my art. Make people think. The book Be Here Now by Ram Dass has been a big influence. He talks a lot about the quest for knowledge through your art."

"I also really respect artist Alex Gray [best known for Tool's album covers]. He really meditates in his work and it shows. Although, I can't meditate and zone out when I'm welding or I'll burn my face off."

Whatever the inspiration, cool stuff makes us want to keep building cool stuff. 

[secondlifestudios]

We Love Design, Part 2

See the previous part here.

What childhood didn’t include LEGO and paper airplanes?

Andy Thacker, one of our designers, got his start in design at a young age. “I used to play with LEGO and I was obessed with making paper airplanes. I only cared about how cool they looked, not whether or not they could fly. I spent way more time making the planes then trying to fly them.”

Thus, a designer was born.

Andy received an architecture degree from K-State many years later. “I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but mostly just machines and buildings and guitars. I went into architecture because people would say, ‘Hey, you can draw, you should be an architect.’ It just ended up sticking.”

In school, he looked toward architects like Carlo Scarpa. “I wasn’t designing the way everyone else was and I thought I was doing it wrong. Then I had a professor say, ‘This isn’t wrong, look at Carlo.’ He was fascinated with little details and blowing them up.”

His biggest influence, though, was Peter Zumthor. “His book Thinking Architecture is all about viewing spaces through experience and memory. He writes about his grandmother’s kitchen door and how it felt to walk through it.

“When I design, I try to pull from memories like that. Certain spaces in my life like my old bedroom or a coffee shop create feelings and emotions that I want to evoke. I love that idea that we have certain memories that we associate with home, safety, and love.”

When designing the Tiny House, Andy pulled memories from New York. “I watched someone’s apartment when I lived in New York City. It was one of those old brownstones and he was renovating it to be all open. The light flooded in in layers and everything was white. I tried to design the sawtooth skylights in the tiny house to mimic that playful quality of light.”

“The first time I walked into the finished tiny house I said, ‘Yeah, this is exactly how that felt.’”

Memory and emotion are a huge part of what we do at Second Life Studios. We’re not out to make the flashiest most avant-garde thing you’ve ever seen. We know aesthetics matter, whether you realize it consciously or not. 

Aesthetics do a lot for our memories and emotional health. If you walk into a place that feels right, chances are someone really put thought to it. And since we exist to reclaim people, places, and things, that’s why we love design. We believe all nouns deserve purpose.

[secondlifestudios]

#reclaimnouns

We show you what we're building all the time. Now we want to see what you're up to.

Post a photo of something you've built and tag us in it (along with the hashtag ‪#‎reclaimnouns‬) for a chance to win a stylish Second Life Studios shop hat!