Edmonds teens launch luxury door business

A year ago, Jake Ingram and Isabella Johnstun were seniors at Edmonds-Woodway High School. Like many people their age, they were balancing their social life, finishing school, and considering the overwhelming question of what to do next.

"The plan was always to go to college," Ingram said. However, a few months before graduating, Ingram went to Johnstun, his friend since middle school, with an idea that prompted him to stray from that path. Now, they are business owners.

LiveHabitat is their co-owned company. They make custom live-edge wooden doors and tables which, as hand-made, luxury items, cost thousands of dollars. Live edge is a design element that involves using single slabs from a tree, complete with knots and voids. A hardening epoxy is applied to turn those voids into elegant, functional art—mainly doors and tables. Ingram is the engineer, while Johnstun oversees the business operations.

"I was planning on going to school for mechanical engineering, but I thought I would be happier doing this, so I wanted to try it," Ingram said.

Ingram, now 18, put the money he had saved for college into launching LiveHabitat, and the pair moved into his parents’ home in Emerald Hills (they started dating a few months after graduating). They bought a warehouse in Seattle's SODO district, and dropped $14,000 on an impressive, computerized cutting machine, called a CNC router. Much of the work, however, is done by hand, out of the Ingrams’ garage.

"We haven't had use of our garage for many years now," Ingram's father, Mark Ingram, said. "It's a workshop." The Ingrams’ house is filled with evidence of Jake's fine woodworking skills, which he has been cultivating since childhood.

"He started with his grandpa when he was 4," Mark Ingram said. "He's been self-taught since then, learning through YouTube and figuring it out as he goes. When he was 11 or 12 he started making beautiful wooden cutting boards, which he sold at school auction. He has a unique way of visualizing solutions and is very handy to have around the house."

"He's a very self-motivated learner," 19-year-old Johnstun said of her boyfriend and business partner.

Johnstun's aptitude for the business side of things seems just as predestined. "I started reading financial education and business books when I was probably 8, and my parents own a business so I’ve kind of always known I wanted to start a business," Johnstun said. "I didn't know what I wanted my business to be about, so when Jake came to me with the idea I was super excited."

Johnstun's parents own Dick's Restaurant Supply, which has operated in the Edmonds and Seattle areas for over 30 years. Johnstun and Ingram both work at the restaurant supply company part time, in addition to running LiveHabitat. On top of that, Johnstun is attending Grand Canyon University online, studying business administration.

"It's actually been really helpful," she said.

The two sometimes clock 60-hour weeks. The only thing they do beside work, they said, is go to the gym. For the time being, they are getting business through word of mouth. They hope to finish more projects, and thus grow their social media presence to attract business.

Most of their customers are homeowners and they also have sold their furniture to a few restaurants. One homeowner in Idaho is purchasing a four-piece table set, all made from the same slab of walnut wood, for $20,000.

So that she can fulfill customers’ requests, Johnstun has been learning the ins and out of the process Ingram uses on the wood slabs.

"I’ve been learning so much about power tools, how to prep the slab and take the bark off, how to do all the sanding," she said. "You have to mix the perfect ratios of epoxy, so it's kind of some science and math, too. I’ve been having so much fun learning all these new skills."

Customers can customize almost everything about their live-edge products. They can choose their wood species, table base, door hardware, the finish, and the pigment and opacity of the epoxy used to fill voids in the wood.

LiveHabitat mostly sources its wood from Washington saw-mills but will have wood shipped if a customer wants a particular type that isn't available locally. "We try not to say no," Ingram said.

LiveHabitat's first customers were Ingram's parents. The Ingrams purchased a sliding door which now lives between the kitchen and dining room. It's made from curly maple, with black epoxy and black hardware. "It's definitely an art statement," Mark Ingram said.

Mark Ingram said he and his wife were nervous, at first, about their son starting the business instead of going to college. It came as no surprise, though, as "Jake has always been driven and we knew early on that he would end up doing something with his handy skills," Ingram said.

Johnstun said the company has received plenty of positive feedback from customers, friends, family and business partners. The main comment they get, however, is about their age.

"A lot of people are just kind of shocked by how young we are. That's kind of the big reaction we get from people," Ingram said.

LiveHabitat can be found on Instagram @livehabitatdoors or at www.livehabitatdoors.com.

— By Mardy Harding