Saying goodbye to the old Albuquerque house…

In case you haven’t been following us the past few months, we’ve made more than a few recent life changes. In June, right on the heels of Blade Show, we welcomed our son Barlow into the world. In July we sold our home and in August we said sayonara to New Mexico and hello to New England (Cape Cod, more specifically).

Things you might learn in a cross-country move: 1.) Moving cross-country is damn hard 2.) Moving a business cross-country is damn harder 3.) You probably own more crap than you realize 4.) It’s important to have a team of close friends and family to drink a beer with when stuff is good and when stuff is bad 5.) It will take you way longer to get unpacked and back up and running than you ever thought 6.) IKEA is life.

Moving a shop in a POD is nuts and takes extreme spatial relations skills. 

The impetus for the move was being closer to family with a new baby, but we figured that would be part of our “five-year plan.” The universe had a slightly different schedule though, and when we found an awesome shop space in the little seaside town where we always come on vacation, we knew we needed to make it happen sooner than later. Plus, Luc always said he would retire by the ocean, so we figured why not make it happen in our 30s instead (except for the whole retirement thing).

Bought some new signage for the shop when we visited in March…

It’s still a little surreal that we’re no longer in our old space/home in the desert, but we’re getting used to the sea air, summer traffic, and humidity.

Luc and Barlow at the beach on a very misty morning. 

Our day-to-day office setting is a little different and a lot roomier than before, and there’s potential down the road for a small retail area. The move to this new space affords us a lot more opportunities to continue working on great projects and add new ones to our rotation. We’re still getting set up, but it’s feeling really good to come into work every day, unlock the door, and turn on the lights.

Maddie putting together some IKEA drawers while Barlow “helps.” 

Needless to say, after months of preparation for this transition, we’re itching to be back on the job. But, we realize that there’s a great potential to really re-think our workspaces and workflow, so we’re trying to do it right the first time and not take any shortcuts during this process.

One really awesome thing is that we’re in the promised land for machinery now!

At the moment, Luc’s biggest priorities are getting the grinding room, dust collection, and compressed air up and running–the final steps before he can get back to work and start getting ready for the New York Custom Knife Show in November. It’s still a big “IF,” but we’re trying to make it happen.

Running airlines. It’s a big looped system that runs off of the new compressor.

Working on getting the machining “pod” up and running.

A little light reading. Figuring out where we want the grinders and how to run the dust collection.

Thank you all for bearing with us these past few months. We’re super excited to begin the next chapter of BRNLY Brand and Burnley Knives, and look forward to bringing you bigger and better things!