LR Design CO.

may_meeting
Recap: 5/22/19

Hosted by MC Lemay + Allie Rivenbark from LR Design Co

Allie and MC gave us a shop tour and talked about their work and journey from starting their business in Atlanta and moving it to Portland in 2013.

LR Design Co. is a custom wood and metal design studio with over 15 years experience designing and building custom and commissioned works for residential and commercial clients.

Their studio is nestled in the creative hub just off of North Interstate and N Tillamook St.

They have completed a wide range of custom retail, restaurant and hotel projects for companies like Pendelton, Made Here PDX, Nike and many more. You can stop by the recently opened Society Hotel rooftop to see some of their custom made tables in action.

They also have a collective showroom space at Urbanite where you can see some of their work in person.

*MC and Allie holding court, sharing their business journey

Allie and MC joined forces to start a business together in 2013 and three months later made the big move to Portland from Atlanta. Prior to starting a business together MC had been designing and welding in Atlanta for 7 years. Allie had been working in the design, visual merchandising, interior designing and remolding for 7 years.

MC handles all of the welding, designing and technical consulting for metal. Allie handles all the wood, customer relations and marketing side of their business.

black-walnut-dining-table — *Walnut Dining Table – perfect example of their collaboration – photo from LR Design Co.

Their current business model is 30% online orders / 30% retail / 30% commercial projects. They talked about how that model serves them and what they are hoping to move towards as their business grows.

They talked about the importance of word of mouth, community and collaboration process between fabricator and designer. Also how valuable knowing how to make can be when designing and how pulling in the fabricator early in the design process can save everyone time and material in the end.

They also talked about what its like to be a married couple in a business partnership and how they make it successful.

May_2019_2 — *MC teaching us the tools of her trade

MC gave us a tutorial on the difference between MIG and TIG welding and her preference for both depending on the task at hand. She also showed us their welding table that makes production parts easy to jig up.

Allie showed us her amazing collection of salvage wood slabs in the shop that are all waiting for the perfect project.