Fancy furnishings

: Legacy Furniture co-owner Hazen Hackett stands next to a showroom display of several custom wood items he makes and sells, such as the cutting boards on the shelf, a small table with a wine rack and a paper-towel holder on it and the wall-mounted wine rack over his shoulder. After starting his business in his home, he opened a store at 1048 Independent Ave., Unit A-106, in a commercial building east of Sam’s Club. Photo by Tim Harty.

Legacy Furniture moved into its store in mid-December, giving it room to do more custom woodworking

Hazen Hackett smiled and chuckled before he answered the question about how much experience he had with woodworking before opening a business that does custom woodworking.

“None,” he said.

OK, no prior work experience, but certainly the 32-year-old former mechanic, welder and maintenance worker at least had taken a shop class in high school?

“Nope, nope,” he said. “I’d never done any woodworking of any kind.”

What he did do about three years ago was watch a video of someone making a wood cutting board, and he thought: “I gotta try it.”

Then, Hackett went about trying it and, soon after, created a business, Legacy Furniture, based out of his home. He began making cutting boards, dining tables, coffee tables, end tables, desk tops, vanity tops, bar tops, kitchen islands, doors, barn doors, wine racks, wall art – “pretty much anything flat,” he said – primarily out of hardwoods. Walnut is a favored variety.

Hackett made a few mistakes early on, as he said for one of his first projects he decided to try making a nine-foot dining table.

In hindsight, he admitted, “I definitely should have started with something smaller. That made more sense. But I learned a lot.”

He got to the point where, with the help of fiancee and business co-owner Sheela Moore, he was doing enough projects that his 250-square-foot garage wasn’t big enough. Now, he has a small store in Independence Plaza, 1048 Independent Ave., Unit A-106, where he opened for business in mid-December.

Hazen Hackett, who co-owns Legacy Furniture with his fiancee Sheela Moore, sits on a couch surrounded by a coffee table and two end tables that he made. Photo by Tim Harty.

“Our orders were filling up, and working from home we could only do one or two small projects at a time, space-wise,” he said. “And then we ran into the issue of people wanting to order tables. We have a lot more space now to work, so we can have four or five dining tables going at a time, if we had the orders, so we can definitely pump up production.”

The location is still relatively small, about 2,000 square feet, but much bigger than his garage, and it had the accommodations he needed most.

“We chose it because it had the workshop and not an overwhelming showroom,” he said.

The showroom is small, but it provides a sense of what Hackett can do, displaying a large dining-room table, a couple coffee tables and end tables, a few wine racks and charcuterie boards, a paper-towel holder, and a healthy selection of cutting boards.

His finished products are not cheap.

A cutting board might be $250 to $300. A small dining room table probably will start at $4,000, and a large dining table is going to be at least $8,000.

Legacy Furniture co-owner Hazen Hackett stands next to a dining table he made and now displays in the showroom of his business at 1048 Independent Ave., Unit A-106. Sitting in the middle is a charcuterie board he made. His dining tables cost about $4,000 for a small one, while an 8-foot or 9-foot table is likely to start at $8,000. Hackett said the wood alone is expensive for his projects, and he provided an extreme example: “We just did an estimate for a lady in Vail. She wanted a five-foot wide, 10-foot long, live-edged table. And my price on the wood was $22,000 for this slab of wood.” Photo by Tim Harty.

If those prices sound high, Hackett counters they are not. Many people don’t realize what wood costs nowadays, he said, nor do they realize how much work goes into something that may look simple, but there’s much more to it than meets the eye.

“It doesn’t seem intricate, but it really is,” he said.

Toni Miller, whose previous jobs included 14 years as a home remodeler, doesn’t need any convincing. She and her husband, Troy Miller, bought a kitchen island and matching bar top from Legacy Furniture as part of remodeling their home, and she was pleasantly surprised by the purchase price.

“Oh my god, it totally surprised me,” Toni said. “I’ve been doing remodels for eons, and the pricing was impressive and incredible for what they produce. … Understanding what building costs are, especially when it comes to unique, creative pieces, you can’t beat what he does.”

Legacy Furniture needs to feature Miller in its marketing, because she raved about the quality of the woodworking and Hackett’s role as an adviser.

“He does incredible work, not just from a standpoint of materials – the materials were phenomenal – but also design ideas and color choices,” she said. “He came out and saw what we were doing in our remodel, and he was able to guide us as to what would work, so we weren’t left to our own selves. He doesn’t tell you necessarily what to do, but he guides you, so you make the appropriate decision.

“And then the work is absolutely stunning. Everybody that comes in and sees it says, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a work of art.’ I’m like, ‘I know.’”

More about Legacy Furniture

FIANCEE AND VISIONARY

Hazen Hackett started his business before he met Sheela Moore, who’s now his fiancee. Moore took an interest in Hackett’s fledgling business, and he said it’s the best thing that happened to Legacy Furniture.

“She encouraged it to actually be something,” he said. “I did like cutting boards and stuff, and I sold a couple. And then when I met her, she started moving stuff, you know, she kicked off the business.

“I just had an idea, and she had a vision.”

In addition to her work in the office – marketing, administrative work – Moore became a helpful hand in the workshop. She does some of the epoxy pours, especially on the cutting boards.

This live-edge coffee table is displayed in Legacy Furniture’s showroom along with several cutting boards on the window sill.

LEARNING ON THE JOB

Everything about woodworking was a learning experience for Hackett, and a few of the most important lessons were:

  • Let the wood dry.

“I didn’t know how important moisture content of the wood was,” he said, but once he experienced warping and cupping, he got the message.

Now, he said, “When we order wood in, it needs to sit in here for about two months before I can touch it. Even if it is dry, it needs to acclimate to the shop space.”

  • Order wood much thicker than the final product will be.

“I learned if you want a two-inch-thick table, you need to order a 3-inch-thick slab to start with,” he said. “A third of it’s gonna end up being sawdust.”

  • Epoxy is expensive.

“The epoxy, it’s $120 a gallon,” Hackett said, “so (Moore) learned to be a little careful with it. I’ve had molds leak.”

  • Temperature matters when pouring epoxy.

“I didn’t know temperature was so important,” he said. “We had one flash here where the whole thing just cracked in half as it cured, because it got too hot and cooled off too fast, and it just shattered.”

EPOXY MAKES PERFECT

Most woodworkers want wood without any imperfections or as few imperfections as possible. Not Hackett. Give him the stuff everyone else wants to discard.

“We try to find wood with the most cracks and voids,” he said.

That’s because epoxy does wonders filling cracks and voids and producing a finished product that has color and character. “You can show its defects and highlight them rather than hiding them,” he said.

This is one of a couple dozen cutting boards made at Legacy Furniture. Co-owner Hazen Hackett can add a wide variety of colors to his wood projects, such as the green in this cutting board. Photo by Tim Harty.

YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T DO THAT

Hackett is open to customer requests for wood projects, but not every idea is a good idea. “We can do countertops,” he said, “but I try to talk customers out of it.”

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Hackett considered five different names before settling on Legacy Furniture. Heirloom Furniture got strong consideration, too.

“I wanted something to say it’s a long-lasting investment, something you can leave for your kids,” he said.

WHAT’S NEXT?

As big as some of his dining tables are, Hackett wants to go bigger.

“We haven’t done a conference table,” he said. “I’d love to get to doing some conference tables for some companies. That would be the next big thing.”

Asked if making chairs are on his list, Hackett said he’d only tackle those as a hobby, something to challenge himself.

“I mean, it doesn’t seem intricate, but a tabletop’s intricate enough,” he said. “You know, with the epoxy and the woodworking, it’d be a $4,000 chair, which no one’s really interested in.”