A brand new small enterprise is producing fairly the thrill in Templeton.

Bees Boards, a garage-based woodshop established by Paul and Bee Jones in 2021, has been creating handmade boards and a wide range of customized picket merchandise for his or her clients on-line, at craft festivals, and at a number of native shops.

And it began when the couple, who’ve been married since 2005, determined they needed to revive an outdated butcher’s block of their kitchen, in keeping with Bee.

“I believed, ‘OK, I’ll go get a brand new one,’ however then I noticed the worth of them, so I stated, ‘How exhausting can this be to repair?’” she stated. “And that’s actually what began all of this, was attempting to determine how one can repair this butcher’s block so I didn’t have to purchase a brand new one.”

YouTube College taught them what they know

After consulting a couple of on-line how-to movies about restoring outdated butcher’s blocks (“YouTube College,” as Paul places it), the couple determined to observe their abilities first by making some reducing boards. Because it occurred, a canine rescue group that the couple is concerned with was in search of raffle gadgets for a fundraising occasion.

“Six or seven reducing boards later, they raised $3,500 and paid for a canine’s medical bills, and we began having individuals asking us if we may make them a reducing board – and it form of blew up on us from there,” Paul stated. “We went out and received an LLC registered, turned a enterprise, and began in search of craft festivals and initiatives and issues we may tackle and do for individuals.”

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Templeton couple convert storage into woodshop

After changing half of their storage right into a working woodshop, full with CNC and laser capabilities, the couple – neither of whom had any actual prior woodworking expertise – went to work, producing reducing boards, cheese slicers, indicators, utensils and barware.

Additionally they started making specialised cribbage boards after studying that the sport was slightly widespread in New England. Paul, who’s from the U.Ok., and Bee, who’s from Ohio, weren’t conversant in the sport previous to transferring to the world in 2006. However after promoting a whole bunch of them on the Massive E in Springfield, the couple determined to make cribbage boards a everlasting a part of their assortment.

“I don’t play,” admitted Bee. “I needed to truly Google what a cribbage board appears to be like like as a result of I’d by no means seen one earlier than.”

Bees Boards retains it native

Quickly, their merchandise, which have been crafted largely from domestically sourced lumber, have been gracing the cabinets of a number of native companies, together with Smith’s Nation Cheese in Winchendon and the Purple Apple Farm in Phillipston.

“We’ve expanded far past making a couple of reducing boards,” stated Paul, who has a day job in safety gross sales engineering for a big IT firm. He stated Bees Boards typically recruited native assist to provide a few of their aspect merchandise. “The storage baggage for the cribbage boards are sewn by a pal right here in Templeton, the metallic discs we use for the peg storage pocket is domestically made in Templeton by one other pal – if we will preserve it native, we do.”

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Allie Catlin, proprietor of Smith’s Nation Cheese, stated carrying Bees Boards merchandise in her retailer was a “win-win” scenario for everybody concerned.

“(Paul and Bee) are very simple to cope with on a wholesale aspect; they’re attentive, they’ll test in on their shows, they actually care about how every part appears to be like in our retailer, and so they have a fast turnaround time, and you may inform they make a top quality native product, which we love in our store,” Catlin stated. “And so they’re actually fantastic individuals.”

Tom Collaro, retail supervisor at Purple Apple Farm, stated the farm’s Nation Retailer carries a wide range of Bees Boards gadgets, together with charcuterie boards, whiskey people who smoke and mini-cribbage boards. However he stated their hottest merchandise is the espresso scoop clips.

“Any time we get in new Bees Boards merchandise and put up about it on our social media channels, clients get excited,” stated Collaro, who added that Paul and Bee are longtime guests to Purple Apple Farm. “We completely love having them as a companion and collaborator, and our clients love seeing what’s new of their part of our retailer.”

Woodworking couple’s rule of thumb: ‘Maintain it enjoyable’

As for his or her future plans, the pair are planning subsequent 12 months on attending a number of larger craft festivals, together with a Christmas craft honest at Mohegan Solar, and making a return go to to the Massive E.

“We’re at all times in search of alternatives to get our merchandise in entrance of individuals as a result of individuals like to the touch and really feel these items – they don’t simply need to see it on an internet site,” Paul defined.

The couple, who not too long ago joined the Better Gardner Chamber of Commerce, will proceed creating their specialised picket merchandise as lengthy they’re having time.

“Our rule of thumb is that it needs to be enjoyable,” Paul defined, including that they particularly take pleasure in collaborating with native companies. “We began doing this as a result of we discovered we loved it, nevertheless it at all times needs to be enjoyable. I don’t know if we’re trying to increase. We’d love extra store house, however store house comes with hire, and I like not paying hire for store house.”

By the way, Paul and Bee stated they’ve but to get round to restoring their butcher’s block.