How I buried one dream to build three

This weekend marked our 17th year at the Woodlands Art Festival.

Every year, it stirs something in me.
Inspiration.
Memory.
A quiet nudge from an old dream.

You see, building furniture was supposed to be our future.

My wife and I envisioned it as our retirement plan after I wrapped up a long, noble run in oil & gas.

Spoiler alert: life had other plans.

And thank God.

I was in love with the idea of making furniture.

The romance of craftsmanship.

The smell of fresh oak.

The feel of walnut under hand.

But I overlooked the most important detail.....how the hell we were going to make a living.

In 2017, we dove headfirst into the dream.

We had savings, we had stubbornness, and we were just mad enough at the world to take a swing.

Back then, we called ourselves S&S Studio.

Today, that name still lives, but we’ve grown into something different:
Bayou City Buildout.
Texas Deck & Fence.
And still… S&S Studio.

My wife?

She finishes her MFA in Interior Architecture and Design in two months.

I still wake up every day thinking about design, space, structure, but furniture is no longer the finish line.

We don’t build chairs.

We build environments.

What I’ve learned about dreams:

Some are stepping stones, not destinations

Ideas are cheap—living is expensive

The “art” is in adapting

Divergence is not failure, it’s evolution

And what we do now instead:
We build homes, decks, clinics, and commercial spaces

We build systems that scale

We build with vision and strategy, not just wood

We build with purpose, not just passion

Had we stuck to the original dream, I’m not sure we’d still be standing.

But because we dared to let go of what was “supposed to be,”
We built something that actually works.

Passion is great.

But profit keeps the lights on.

PS: Have you ever had to pivot from a dream to survive?

PSS: I read from JP Warren that if I include a picture of my wife it will stop the scroll, here goes nothing.