Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Rosckes
Justin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My story starts before my wife and I got married. At the time I was an auto mechanic and both of us were going back to school. I was pursuing a bachelor’s in business management but wasn’t sure what our next chapter would look like. I only knew I didn’t want to further pursue a career in the automotive industry. I loved the hands on work, the variety, and potential complexity in the day to day but I missed a sense of artistry. Flash forward a year or two. My wife and I were married, my wife graduated from her advanced degree, I was close to finishing my program, and we started talking about having a family. From that conversation I, for the first time, really considered leaving the only thing I knew. The automotive industry and fixing cars. My wife point blank asked me, “If you could do anything, what would you do”?
To which I responded that I still love working with my hands. I find purpose in it. I can’t see myself sitting behind a desk all day. I want to do something more creative. Build things. Not houses but furniture and not just furniture but really high quality fine furniture. I had always enjoyed it as a hobby. Coming up with the occasional project to make with my dad. So I consumed every bit of woodworking I could. I subscribed to every magazine, watched endless hours of YouTube, and started making things. Just after our first daughter was born I quit my job as a mechanic and started Midwest Woodcraft. I traded in my wrenches for saws and never looked back. That was almost 8 years ago. Now I get to work from home out of my shop creating and building custom furniture that will last a lifetime. I’ve also purchased a sawmill in that time and started processing lumber and beautiful slabs from logs. Many of which clients contact me to have me pickup a tree from their property and then I process and create a custom piece for them. I call them heirlooms from heirlooms. All the while I get to stay at home with my girls (we have 3 now) during this fleeting time of their childhood. I live a lot of people’s dreams. Certainly my own. To which I am grateful everyday.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
So much to learn; marketing, photography, taxes, creating estimates, shipping and packaging. Just in terms of logistics.
One thing I certainly struggled with was identity. I was an auto mechanic for 11 years. I went to school for it, trained through manufacturers programs, and was good at it. So to go from something I was very confident doing to something I had little experience and no training in was hard. Especially with the comparison trap that is social media. Always thinking I didn’t have the right tools, I wasn’t doing things big enough, and I wasn’t successful at it.
That was the biggest obstacle. Figuring out my new identity. Which like all things only comes with time and persistence. One day in working in my shop it came to me. It is persistence that determines success not perfection. It’s easy to get wrapped up in how we think things should look or the way things should happen. But it’s all about not giving up, being humble, and not being afraid to fail.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a woodworker that creates custom wood furniture as well as an amateur Sawyer that makes logs into lumber.
My specialty is not a specific area or type of furniture but more about how I make the furniture. My motto is “Heirloom quality furniture and wood products”. I use a lot of traditional joinery methods to construct my furniture. The time tested methods that last a lifetime.
What’s next?
As my kids get all get older and are all in school I hope to do more of what I’m doing now. Spend more time creating and more time on the sawmill. Anyone that’s done it will tell you every time you cut open a new log it’s like Christmas. You never know what’s inside. Something ugly from the outside that has taken a hundred years to grow can have incredibly beautiful secrets inside.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.midwestwoodcraft.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midwestwoodcraft?igsh=MXBuaGxpODZmZGt5Mg==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/midwestwoodcraft/
