Our Workshop

Our workshop is a modest converted garage in the suburban sprawl of Dallas, Texas. Over the past 18+ years it has been the center of our remodeling of every room of our house. From the studs out in our kitchen and baths, to the hardwood floors, fireplace, staircase, and landscaping, no space has been left untouched. During that process, we have had to develop many skills just to put our house back together again. But along the way we’ve also developed our own style as we rebuilt. It is that style that we are bringing to our shop. We no longer think about answers to questions like “What would happen if we took down this wall?” That wall is gone. Now we think about “What are we going to put in that space?”

What are we going to put into that space?

So here is where we explain our shop’s guiding principles.

  1. Simple is better than complicated.

  2. Understated is better than overstated.

  3. Raw is better than refined.

  4. Sometimes bending the principles makes it interesting.

As we developed our style over the past two decades we came to the realization that our taste didn’t match with the prevailing style of the time, or the time of our house’s construction. The ornateness, the carved wood, the heavy patterns, it was all too much for us. We even started using a term between us to sum it up—Bellagio - in reference to the Las Vegas hotel. We would go to a furniture store and rate pieces, even stores, by how “Bellagio” they were. And it was everywhere. It became our adjective of derision. The heart of the problem with this style to us, is that it tried so hard to look rich, but was really just cheap knockoffs. It just felt fake, and uncomfortable to live in. It was perfect for the suburbs of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and beyond. What we preferred was almost the complete opposite, and you can see it those guiding principles. Finding pieces like this was a challenge; sometimes they go too far into ultra-modern, which isn’t us either. And, frustratingly, they are almost always far more expensive than their Bellagio counterparts. In the end, we started making our own decor, and that’s how we got here.

Welcome to Sub + Urban Works.