Photo Essay: A Day in the Life at a Leather Workshop

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.

Convenient dice games on-the-go: farkle and yacht (yatzy)

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.

Perfect 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

Travel Backgammon for travelers, made from natural materials

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

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

Walnut Studiolo Drawer Pulls Oswego Leather Wrap

Wrap handles, bannisters and more in quality veg-tan leather

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

Leather 101

We wrote a free educational series about our favorite material, from how it's made to spotting vintage quality

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

About Us

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

More Information

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.

Customer Service

The Blog

Our blog"In a Nutshell" is written by humans:

- how-to guides

- in-depth articles

- photo essays

This blog is written by humans.

100% written by humans.
We don't use generative A.I.

Read Our Statement on A.I.

by Valerie Franklin
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.

A man plunging a french press for coffee in a white kitchen with leather drawer pulls. Behind him, the windows show the early morning twilight with electric blue skies

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.

A woman touching something on a shelf in a workshop storage area while a man watches from behind

8:52 am

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

A man at a workbench, applying dye to leather straps with blue gloves on

11:33 am

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

A woman working at a shipping work station, moving packages in a blur

12:13 pm

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

A grassy hill on a sunny day in front of the red barn workshop; a man is throwing a frisbee at a disc golf target basket

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.

A couple smiling at the camera from the dinner table with plates of food in front of them and a cribbage game going

1:37 pm

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

A man in a workshop standing with his back to the camera working on a project while wearing headphones

2:02 pm

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

A woman working on a computer in a home office with blue walls

2:05 pm

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

A man takes a hurried selfie with half his face off-camera while digging weeds in the yard on a sunny day

4:25 pm

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

A man at a workbench with a green self-healing cutting mat surface, punching holes in black leather pieces

4:34 pm

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

A view from inside mesh deer netting of it being stretched across a line of laurel bushes in front of the Walnut Studiolo monument highway sign

5:36 pm

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

A robotic machine with a vacuum hose cutting circles in planks of wood from a computer

6:44 pm

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

Informal dinner laid out on a coffee table: plates with salad and pasta, water glasses, a bottle of red wine

8:09 pm

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

A man sitting cross-legged on a couch with a leather project in his lap, stitching with the headlamp on in a cozy library den

9:45 pm

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

A large cartoon thought bubble icon laid over the photo of a person walking down a rainy driveway with a red umbrella to the workshop studio

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.

You Might Also Be Interested In...

Power Outage! An Unusual Day in the Life at Walnut Studiolo

A hand crumpling used label paper backing and placing it in a bin of crumpled paper for re-use as void fill in shipping boxes

How We Use Up-Cycled Packaging with Care

Close-up of a man's torso in front of a workbench, where he is applying honey-colored leather dye color to leather straps wearing blue gloves

Photo Essay: How We Make Things

15 Reasons We Are Proud to Be a Small Business

Looking at a garage from the driveway with the door open; Geoff is sitting on a bench in the front smiling; off to the right Valerie is standing with a bike, and the garage is full of tables, equipment, tools, and benches

Photo Essay: Evolution of a Workshop

A woman's hand holding a sparkler on the 4th of July at a party on a public beach with a lighter in a handcrafted leather lighter sleeve

How to Find Actually Made in the USA Goods

Photo collage of four different colored leather handles on four different background colors from customer projects: honey on blue, black on ash wood, natural on brown-black, and dark brown on white cabinetry

Photo Gallery: Leather Handle Colors on Different Material Backgrounds (Lots of Project Photos!)

Stock image of a word board with the word taxes on top of a pile of US dollar bills

A Note About Sales Taxes

Visit 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

Language

Language