Out of the Ashes

After six years as a draftsman at Boeing—his first job out of high school—Ken Richards had enough money put aside to buy five acres and a barn in nearby Maple Valley, Wa., and he was ready for a career change. “Six years of sitting at a desk, in a room full of desks, in a giant building full of rooms full of desks—was enough to convince me the insecurity of unemployment beat the security of Boeing,” he recalls.

Drawn to woodworking, Richards got a contractors license to pay the bills and spent his free time building furniture in the barn, for family and friends. To keep his overhead low, he lived in an unfinished house on the property—essentially a basement with a roof on it, left behind by the previous owners.

Within five years, Richards was woodworking full-time in the barn and had his first piece in the Northwest Fine Woodworking Gallery in Seattle, a thriving retail space for beautiful contemporary work. His padauk wine cabinet sold quickly to a visiting couple from Florida, who were interested