Photo Essay: A Day in the Life at Walnut Studiolo

A Black woman wearing a denim shirt is carrying a bicycle down a set of stairs in an urban environment. The bicycle has a green paint job and honey leather wrapped handlebars.

Original, unique designs to help with lifting and carrying your bicycle

Lifetime leather bar wraps in five styles for every type of handlebar and bicycle

A woman bicycling on a bright summer day over a green lawn wearing suede fringe cowgirl boots and with a 6-pack of Anchor Steam beer connected to the top tube of her bicycle with a honey leather 6-pack frame cinch

Best-selling "commuter essentials" for making the daily commute easier

A dark brown leather round, barrel-shaped saddle bag with cedar wood sides mounted to the back of a brown leather Brooks saddle on a cream-and-brown painted bicycle

Stunning handcrafted bicycle bags carry the essentials and turn heads!

Two people playing a game of travel cribbage on a wooden picnic table with a small leather and birch cribbage board

Our original best-selling Travel Cribbage Boards have fans worldwide

Two sets of travel dice on a dark brown leather table surface. Both sets show six dice coming out of a square brass tube. The dice are 7mm, smaller than standard. One has white dice and the other has black dice.

Play dice anywhere you go in a handcrafted brass keychain or necklace.

Two people playing dominoes using small, domino-sized playing cards on a walnut wood table with snacks and drinks. The domino cards are double 12 with different colors for each number and hand-drawn.

Uniquely functional for travel: hand-drawn domino playing cards (2 sizes!)

Close-up of a folding leather travel backgammon board mid-play on a weathered wood surface. A hand is reaching in and moving four game pieces (which are brass nails) between triangles, which are laser-engraved in the honey dyed leather. Accessories are visible, dice and doubling cube and peg storage

Our newest folding leather board and favorite game: Travel Backgammon!

A variety of handcrafted leather and wood handles on a sample board as seen from above and an angle

All handcrafted handles in 8 styles, 4 leather colors, & 3 metal finishes

A white chest of drawers in a white and lilac baby nursery with three colors of leather Morrison bin pull handles, in Honey, Dark Brown, and Black

Strong yet soft, durable and sustainable, no-bumps and no-bruises

Collection details, stylesheets, dimensions, sizing, palette & more

Two cabinet doors swinging open towards each other with matching leather Lovejoy loop handles. The leather touches so the cabinets don't crash into each other, a solution for problem corners in kitchen design planning

Flexible but sturdy, creative solutions to tricky problem corners

We wrote a free educational series about our favorite material, delivered to your inbox.

Leather 101

Valerie and Geoff from Walnut Studiolo are standing on a pile of driftwood between two boulders on the North Oregon Coast beach near Manzanita, with mountains and grey sky in the background

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A long dark brown leather blueprint tube is shown on a long countertop being hand stitched together by Geoff, whose stitching hands are in the background

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Valerie and Geoff Franklin of Walnut Studiolo standing behind their bicycles on a grassy green lawn. Geoff is doffing his hat to Valerie and she is smiling, as a gesture of service.

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by admin
September 26, 2019
2 min read
8 Comments

Come behind the digital curtain with us and enjoy this photo essay. We snapped pictures of ourselves at intervals during a typical day working and living from home as a small family business, on the eve of our 10th year in business.

6:52 am

Coffee first. Our method: French press with medium-roast beans. Breakfast was a fried egg, a slice of toast, and half a nectarine.

8:35 am

Giving a quick tour of the workshop and an informational interview with the team at Blendily, a fellow small business owner from Portland.

8:52 am

Hand-dyeing straps with honey color, which will later be cut and assembled into Lovejoy drawer pulls.

11:33 am

Finishing up the morning's shipping (17 packages today). Geoff is hammering so Val is wearing auditory protection.

12:13 pm

Huckin' plastic. Taking in a couple holes of disc golf between the house and the workshop before lunch.

12:40 pm

Lunch is our big meal of the day. We cook together and then sit down and play a game. Today: cribbage and taco pizza.

1:37 pm

Burnishing the leather of the barrel bag in the workshop (melting wax on the edges).

2:02 pm

Val spends the afternoon on the computer in the house, checking email, updating the website, bookkeeping.

2:05 pm

"Weeding is a lifestyle," our farmer says. Taking a few moments to weed the laurel hedge before we cover it up.

4:25 pm

Punching holes in barrel bags to prep for stitching tonight (still in my yard work clothes).

4:34 pm

Winterizing the laurel hedge in front of the Walnut road sign with deer netting.

5:36 pm

Running the CNC router to cut perfect circles out of vertical grain Western Red Cedar for barrel bags and whiskey cases.

6:44 pm

Vegetarian dinner in front of the TV: cacio e pepe, green salad, red wine.

8:09 pm

Stitching up barrel bags while watching TV. Tonight we're watching the architecture show Grand Designs on Netflix.

9:45 pm

Off to bed, thinking about the rain predicted for tomorrow morning.

Walnut Studiolo crafts original modern designs by hand in our Oregon workshop using only natural materials. We are a family-run company located on the North Oregon Coast. Learn more about us on our website.

8 Responses

brendon

April 03, 2024

Off to Italy in 7 days with the tiny cribbage board. Pictures to come soon!!!!

walnutstudiolo

July 11, 2023

Thank you kindly, Mike! When you’re in the area, let us know so we can share a round of disc golf together. Cheers! -Val & Geoff

Mike H

July 11, 2023

Love the Photo Essay: A Day in the Life at Walnut Studiolo. It is so engaging to see how handmade products are crafted AND how life is lived. Thanks for sharing a sliver of what life and craft looks like at walnut studiolo. I wanna huck a round of disc and share a cup of mud (coffee) with yâ€™all.

Bruce Miller

July 11, 2023

Hey Valerie, You found a real nice patch of paradise to call your own, very lovely. -Best Regards, Bruce Miller

walnutstudiolo

July 11, 2023

â¤ï¸ this! Thank you for the kind words, Dana! :) – Val & Geoff

Dana Cunningham Anderson

July 11, 2023

Well, just seeing those gorgeous leather drawer pulls in the first frame in “A Day In the Life” caused me to immediately email Val to get the ball rolling toward having those in our kitchen in Blaine! I think they’re the perfect touch for the newly re-painted kitchen in our 110 year old house with lovely fir floors milled right off our mountain. Wow! So beautiful seeing YOUR new kitchen — in action! Love the materials you’ve chosen.

Congratulations on 10 YEARS — of marriage AND business, not always the easiest combo to manage but it seems to work extremely well for you two. Keep showing us how!

walnutstudiolo

July 11, 2023

Thank you so much for this kind note, Bill! Can’t tell you how much this made us smile today. :) – Val & Geoff

William Harper

July 11, 2023

Hey guys.

Just wanted to say almost every day, my wife and I play on the beautiful driftwood cribbage board I gave her for Christmas a few years ago. And my kids love when I pull out my little dice keychain and we play Yahtzee to pass the time in restaurants.

Your company has really added to our quality of life. I just wanted to say thanks for your great work, congrats on ten years and hereâ€™s to as many more as makes you all happy.

Bill Harper