I
When he’s not at his corporate 9-to-5, catch Robby Simon
in his personal playroom: the woodworking shop.
PATH
OWN
HIS
CARVING
f you told Robby Simon—already the definition of a multi-hyphenate, dabbling in everything from the drums to photography to skateboarding—even five years ago that
he’d one day add woodworker to his résumé, he would have
laughed. Simon was 10 years old when his single mother signed him up for Boy Scouts of America, where he was eventually tasked with building a stool. “I never met my dad; he didn’t exist in my life. But my mom was adamant about providing me with experiences around other boys,” he shares. In that moment, with a chop saw and sheet of directions in front of him…he didn’t discover his innate talent. Instead he rejected the craft altogether. “Don’t you need a dad to be able to do this?” his troop leader’s tween-age son teased. “It was embarrassing, traumatizing,” recalls Simon. “I was like, okay, that’s just not something I can do—I’m not white and I don’t have a dad. And so I put it off.”
Two decades passed. Then Simon got a full-time gig at Mailchimp’s Atlanta headquarters as a facilities and aesthetics engineer troubleshooting maintenance issues in the building and sourcing furniture. A peek inside one of the executive’s offices led to a lightbulb moment: The wood credenza and desk he thought were from a big-box retailer were actually handmade by Kendrick Anderson, an artist living nearby. “[It was] seeing that service contribute to a culture where people want to show up and be themselves and have no fear in asking questions,” he says. From that point on, he couldn’t help but fantasize about making furniture himself—as a career.
Here, Simon retraces his personal journey of transforming a hobby into a full-fledged side hustle.
![laughed. Simon was 10 years old when his single mother signed him up for Boy Scouts of America, where he was eventually tasked with building a stool. “I never met my dad; he didn’t exist in my life. But my mom was adamant about providing me with experiences around other boys,” he shares. In that moment, with
a chop saw and sheet of directions in front of him…he didn’t discover his innate talent. Instead he rejected the craft altogether. “Don’t you need a dad to be able to do this?” his troop leader’s tween-aged son teased. “It was embarrassing, traumatizing,” recalls Simon. “I was like, okay, that’s just not something I can do—I’m not white and I don’t have a dad. And so I put it off.”
Two decades passed. Then Simon got a full-time gig at Mailchimp’s Atlanta headquarters as a facilities and aesthetics engineer troubleshooting maintenance issues in the building and sourcing furniture. A peek inside one of the executive’s offices led to a lightbulb moment: The wood credenza and desk he thought were from a big-box retailer were actually handmade by Kendrick Anderson, an artist living nearby. “[It was] seeing that service contribute to a culture where people want to show up and be themselves and have no fear in asking questions,” he says. From that point on, he couldn’t help but fantasize about making furniture himself—as a career.
Here, Simon retraces his personal journey—from transforming a hobby into a full-fledged side hustle.](https://media-s3-us-east-1.ceros.com/domino/images/2022/05/19/f7f1999f634946d6b097cc07569bef20/316.png)
It changes day by
day, and I make so many playlists,
but I am really proud
of this one.
YouTube Tutorial
I've Watched on Repeat:
As Simon began dabbling in lamps, cabinets, and shelving, he was unconsciously curating a collection
of furniture. Posting on Instagram to his nearly 2,700 followers generated enough interest to sell his pieces, first to friends, then to fans. Eventually he realized
he had a legitimate business on his hands, one that required a website. He came up with the name Play.room (a nod to his childlike fascination with the inner workings of, well, everything) and tasked fellow multi-hyphenate artist and pal Haley James with building the digital platform to formally showcase his work. Psst: The site will eventually get a refresh when he launches his second line sometime this year (an assortment that is still in the brainstorm phase).
“Entering serious woodworking mode is like pretending—just like you pretend to be your favorite superhero as a kid; that’s how I feel going into the woodshop,” says Simon. “It’s like: Damn, dude, I feel like I could be George Nakashima or Virgil Abloh
right now.” Just give it time.
Left: Geuse Table, Play.room.
Below: Gabi Console, Play.room.
Clockwise from top: Chunky Wool Jute Rug, Pottery Barn; Pisa Dining Table, Amazon; Bertoia Side Chairs, Knoll; Pink Elephant Paint, Behr;
Terra Cotta Urn Paint, Behr; Obelisk Lamp, Play.room.
At Atlanta-based Mass Collective, one of the largest women-operated maker spaces in the country, Simon has 24-7 access to everything he needs: a table saw, chisel sharpeners, an electric welding machine. Plus there’s the perk of getting to tap the knowledge of all the other creatives and experts around him,
from leather makers to blacksmiths to, of course, fellow woodworkers. While the membership costs $150 per month, it evens out, given Simon doesn’t have to invest in his own tools
or educational courses.
At Mailchimp, Simon had to learn the design fundamentals, as basic as how to read a tape measure and hang a heavy glass whiteboard on the fly (he taught himself the latter—his first task on the job—by locking himself in a private office and frantically watching YouTube videos). “It took me half a day to hang this thing,” he recalls. “People were walking by, asking, ‘You doing good?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, doing great!’”
A few tutorials and free Home Depot seminars later, Simon’s skills and confidence grew, and his newfound can-do attitude
led him to enroll in trade school at Atlanta Technical College.
“I went through the entire process, tested into it, and got accepted,” he shares. But ultimately his full-time job wouldn’t allow him to be physically present for class. Cue plan B: an apprenticeship.
After a friend introduced him to local carpenter Robell Awake and the two met for coffee, Simon knew he had found his teacher. Awake’s talents extend far beyond chairs and cabinetry; he’s also a master at molding and framing houses (he has built multiple for Habitat for Humanity). “The fact that he was another Black furniture maker made a huge difference to me,” adds Simon. “Then I learned he used primarily hand tools, and I was further blown away. I couldn’t believe I had found someone who truly was like me and from my background.”
Still, it was difficult to find the time between his 9-to-5 job.
But with Mailchimp’s offices temporarily closed due to the pandemic, Simon, Awake, and Simon’s manager saw an opening to pitch a special program to the company’s upper-management team: Simon would spend two days of the workweek with Awake, learning skills that would further his command of his current position (and therefore benefit the company), while
also letting him pursue his passion. They approved.
Ari Skin
Words by
Morgan Bulman
Photography by
Work Your Mentorship Magic
Find a Community
Mass Collective is where Simon started his first project with Awake: a 72-by-32-inch dining table made from black American walnut. The process was intense. Simon not only hand-shaped each of the legs but custom-welded the brackets and inlaid brass. “I wanted it to almost feel like an animal,” he explains, a vision
that stemmed from a scene in the movie Beetlejuice in which all the furniture starts coming to life. “That’s why I wanted the legs
to physically align with the top of the table,” he points out.
Still, Simon had to overcome the lingering doubt from his Boy Scouts exchange. On some days, it inhibited him from moving forward with the work—he was terrified of making mistakes. The way to get over the mental hurdle was taking on a smaller (solo) project, using a leftover slab of walnut. “I had to learn to reframe it as: If I mess up at making a table 1,000 times, it’s not that I failed 1,000 times, but that the table took 1,000 steps,” stresses Simon. Three months later, he had a coffee table, which he aptly named for his Boy Scout troop, Weblos.
Fast-forward another three months, and he and Awake finished the dining table (called Geūse) and donated it to a raffle benefiting the family of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota.
Practice to End Up With Perfect
Make It Official
Chris Saloamone’s How to
Build Mid-Century Modern
TV Stand, Credenza, Media
Console.
Elements of plaster and bent plywood.
I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO EXPERIMENTING WITH:
Whatever it is you are creating, don’t be afraid.
You deserve to see yourself doing whatever that thing is that you are imagining in
your mind.
WORDS OF WISDOM FOR ANYONE DEBATING A SIDE HUSTLE:
PLAYLIST I LISTEN TO WHILE WORKING:
My wife, Lauren. She’s a vintage reseller and has shown me how to craft
our own style through a meditative process of finding interesting objects and discovering their history (stay tuned
for a look at our Marietta home on Domino.com).
George Nakashima.
I love his ethos and philosophy about
embracing wood’s imperfections. His
work encourages me to
use walnut and naturally harvested timber
from Eutree.
But my biggest actual influence has to be Virgil Abloh. As I shared on Instagram, he truly taught me to see myself doing
this type of art, how to finesse opportunities into fruition, and to see myself—ALL of myself—
in design.
MY BIGGEST SOURCES OF INSPIRATION:
ATLANTA – GA
Product photography by Robby Simon Video by Matthew Baxter
—ROBBY Simon
I did a lot of deep work
“
—Aneesha Rao
on myself in this space.
I had more intense therapy
and my naturopath.”
with a somatic counselor
sessions; I consulted
At Mailchimp, Simon had to learn the design fundamentals, as basic as how to read a tape measure and hang a heavy glass whiteboard on the fly (he taught himself the latter—his first task on the job—by locking himself in a private office and frantically watching YouTube videos). “It took me half a day to hang this thing,” he recalls. “People were walking by, asking, ‘You doing good?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, doing great!’”
A few tutorials and free Home Depot seminars later, Simon’s skills and confidence grew, and his newfound can-do attitude led him to enroll in trade school at Atlanta Technical College. “I went through the entire process, tested into it, and got accepted,” he shares. But ultimately his full-time job wouldn’t allow him to be physically present for class. Cue plan B: an apprenticeship.
After a friend introduced him to local carpenter Robell Awake and the two met for coffee, Simon knew he had found his teacher. Awake’s talents extend far beyond chairs and cabinetry; he’s also a master at molding and framing houses (he has built multiple for Habitat for Humanity). “The fact that he was another Black furniture maker made a huge difference to me,” adds Simon. “Then I learned he used primarily hand tools, and I was further blown away. I couldn’t believe I had found someone who truly was like me and from my background.”
Still, it was difficult to find the time between his 9-to-5 job. But with Mailchimp’s offices temporarily closed due to the pandemic, Simon, Awake, and Simon’s manager saw an opening to pitch a special program to the company’s upper-management team: Simon would spend two days of the workweek with Awake, learning skills that would further his command of his current position (and therefore benefit the company), while also letting him pursue his passion. They approved.
Product photography by Robby Simon Video by Matthew Baxter
“Entering serious woodworking mode is like pretending–just like you present to be
your favorite superhero as a kid; that's how I feel going into the woodshop.”
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