How Hallowed Woods Began
Our drive and will to achieve positive change have allowed us to grow into the successful Online Sustainable Home Goods Store we are today. It’s not just about offering environmentally friendly and socially responsible products, we strive to inform and inspire the global community to embrace a sustainable lifestyle.
Our Story:
Chip and Wolf have been lifelong friends, and like many, we share a deep concern for the future. Eastern Beetle infestations, Ash blight, over-harvesting, wildfires, rapidly growing demand, and worsening pollution destroys our natural resources every year at alarming rates. Many previously common woods are rapidly approaching extinction, toxic plastics and chemicals are being used to replace many of our daily life goods, and “disposable culture” sending tons of wood to landfills ever year is to blame. We envision a world where harmony and balance exist between humans and the natural world around us; we hope to play our part in achieving this by providing beautiful and convenient household goods that will last for generations—thus reducing over-harvest and growing toxic plastics issues while enriching our customers’ lives.
Hallowed Woods makes a promise of heirloom quality products that are designed to the highest standards, built to last for life, and made to be luxury level goods accessible on any budget. We believe that everyone should be able to enjoy lasting and beautiful household products that reduce waste, and eliminate the need to constantly repurchase “disposable” products. Each and every hand-crafted item is made by our expert team of craftsmen using the highest quality renewable materials, reclaimed wood, or ethically sourced virgin wood. Every item comes with easy-to-follow care instructions to ensure your unique, one-of-a-kind piece will remain beautiful and out-perform your expectations for decades.
At Hallowed Woods, we seek to bridge the gap between ethics, beauty, and quality. Our combined expertise, dedicated research, unyielding expectation of perfection, unwavering mission of sustainability, and attention to detail will deliver a sense of pride and comfort knowing that every single purchase from Hallowed Woods is a promise of a better future. While we discourage and do not ever harvest wood from the wild, we partner with several companies to collect their scrap and demo materials as well as select local mills who certify their inventory is harvested ethically and in full compliance with CITES regulation on exotic and rare woods. Our workspace is powered, in part, by solar panels, our finishes are hand blended using only food-safe and renewable materials, and we believe in a no-waste mindset. Even our sawdust is collected and used! As we tirelessly follow news regarding availability and study cutting edge science to improve quality, you can rest assured that every product we make will leave you breathless.
Beginnings
Chip and Wolf met after a series of unfortunate events, during the dark ages of pre-internet popularity; 1996. Having become fast friends, the pair soon were inseparable. Summers, classes, vacations; pretty much everything was done together. As we grew up, we planned which schools to attend, which classes to take, and created an entire schedule around each other. Wolf took a focus on biological science, math, and fine arts while Chip’s focus was music, philosophy, and computer science. Along the way, they met up with several great minds (who would go on to amazing accomplishments in aerospace, finance, medicine, and software development) and the team grew to about a dozen prodigal teens with unbelievable aspiration.
That team kicked off a manufacturing lab composed of hand-me-down tooling run by the high school friends in a garage back in the magical land of 2006. Back then, we were a FRC robotics team with a pretty substantial track record of innovative and creative means of solving complex problems. NASA, JPL, Disney, NorthropGrumman, The US Marines, USC Medical, and others were quick to assess and scout our team during competition events, and during build season. With the eyes and attention of many companies across many industries, we graduated (school and logistically) to a metal shop specializing in visual arts projects and advanced mechanics ranging from TV and movie props to medical tech and more.
Like many young teams, we eventually drifted apart through college. Though the original machine shop broke apart, Wolf and Chip continued making and designing. After college, and several attempts at typical 9-5 type jobs, we found ourselves longing to be back in the shop. Nights and weekends were filled with sawdust, metal chips, and our friends politely asked we make our hobby into a business—because they couldn’t keep accepting larger and larger wood gifts!
In 2018, we joined up with another woodworking collective to create wonderful tabletop gaming accessories. We both quit our desk jobs. Soon after, the Hallowed Woods’ workshop was built in sunny Los Angeles, California. Our current workspace is a humble, two-story structure in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. With around 140 square feet of usable floor space, we dedicated our time to making quality home goods with an artistic aesthetic and unwavering commitment to ethical, sustainable practices. With years of machining experience, an eye for design, and a passion for every project, Hallowed Woods has settled in on exactly what we were born to do. All of our materials are sourced from reputable companies here in the US.
Every piece of wood we use comes from legal and legitimate sources and farms, all of which use sustainable and ethical practices to ensure our products leave the smallest impact today for the greatest impact tomorrow. And, as a special bonus, all of our products are made by two lifelong best friends.
Our promise to you with each of our products is simple: you will feel good knowing that our projects are heirloom quality, safe and hygienic, ethical, sustainable, and hand made to last two lifetimes.