When Michaela Harr experienced her first deployment, she was told to “keep busy.” And busy she kept, ripping up the floors of her home and installing new hardwoods for a home project that sparked her love affair with woodworking.
Fourteen years later, Michaela’s love for big machines and sawdust is just as strong. She started her career in the field about eight years ago with Harr House Woodworking. Through Harr House, she crafts everything from tables made with giant slabs of maple to charcuterie boards.
“I don’t make anything that I wouldn’t actually use myself,” Michaela says.
The military brought Michaela to the area about two and a half years ago. She spent much of that time working out of her home’s garage. She moved into a shop space beside O’Donnell’s in March — a space she shares with fellow woodworkers and creatives Mollie Tobias and Jake Kerr of Welding Wood.
“We each have our own thing and our own styles, but we do collaborate on pieces every once in a while, which is really fun,” she says.
From delicate bookmarks to the chiseled monstera leaf plant propagation stand, her work combines each of her passions.
“Three nerdy facets for me are woodworking, plants and I am a bibliophile, Michaela says. “So, you’ll see that I tie my love of plants in with the plant swings and planters, and my love of reading in with the bookmarks.”
Michaela doesn’t have plans to open any brick-and-mortar any time soon. Right now, she operates off of custom orders, which can be placed through the Harr House on Instagram.
“Woodworking is my therapy, it’s my happy place, and I’m truly obsessed. I put my earphones in, and everything else just flies away,” Michaela says.
