We want to make the most durable, timeless floors on the planet. Everything else will wear out or go out of style before the stuff we make. That's the goal.
I was reminded of this when I took a break from revising our systems to walk to my favorite coffee shop, Main Street Coffee, in Marble Falls, TX. The coffee shop was a bar before that, a restaurant before that, another bar that, and a builder's office before all that. The builder was named Autumn Group Homes, and when I stained their front porch, I threw in some leaf engraving for free.
The leaves are still there, the job still looks great, and I walked out thinking how lucky I am to feed my family making pretty things. The point isn't me, though. It is restraint in design. If we are all about us, we may do the boldest thing possible to elicit the most praise from people for our work. It's when we think about the world outside us, that we are drawn to the simple, subtle things. Things that endure timelessly. This is how we make the world better with what we learn.
