Profile Gary Weeks

Gary Weeks of Wimberley, TX operates a family woodworking business with his son Austin. Having worked wood his entire life, he has been a furniture maker for over 30 years, best known for his award-winning Weeks Rocking Chair. Here is Gary's story, in his own words.

I grew up around woodworking tools. When I was just old enough to push a handsaw through wood, I helped my father build a picnic table. I can still smell that Redwood. Since Dad owned a fence company, I had access to a lot of wonderful clear ad straight grain scraps to make things.

While in college, I worked, painting and fixing peoples porches and hanging doors. Though accepted to law school, I decided that I wanted to work outside and make things with my own hands. I began a design, building, and contracting business, which grew into remodeling, building houses, historical restoration, cabinetmaking, and millwork. I put together a good little shop.

With the arrival of my children, I no longer wanted to be working out of a truck at off-site locations. I needed a unique product. Figuring that any other backyard or commercial shop could build a table or cabinet, I decided on chairs, focusing on rocking chairs. There's just something special about its connotation with home and family. It's an American icon.

My goal was to make the most comfortable rocker that would last for generations. I believes if i was going to build a rocking chair, i"d better understand the human body. I built a fitting booth to study how people sit. I could adjust the back curve, the pitch, and the lumbar support, and I invited 75 people pf various body types to sit in it. I found that most people are the same height up from the lumbar vertebrae, so we could determine a set of points that support most people in comfort for a given seat. For a dining chair or bar stool, you want to be upright for alert attention; for a rocker, you want to lean back to contemplate, nurture, and repose. I took these set of points to the drawing board to develop a prototype out of Pine and had my study participants return to test the design. With a few adjustments, all found it quite comfortable.

Between contracting and carpentry jobs, we'd made a few rocking chairs for sale. In 1992, I figured they cost us $1,500 to make, but I priced them at $800. As we got better and more efficient without cutting corners, the cost came down. It took seven yers for the curve of demand to meet the learning curve of production. And as sales grew, the less contracting I did.

We have always sold direct, initially at local craft fairs and a s[ace in an antique mall. What really allowed our business to grow was the internet. We created a website early o and garnered a first page location for most searches of handmade rocking chairs. This greatly expanded our market from local to national and worldwide. We have shipped to every state and continent, except Africa.

After four iterations in the first months, the Weeks Rocker has remained the same, for over 30 years. It is offered in Cherry, Walnut, Maple, Mesquite, Mahogany, with the Special Edition 30th Anniversary Weeks Rocker in Figured Mahogany. We buy FSC certified lumber, whenever it is available in the species we need. The price for a rocker ranges from just above $2,000 to just under $5,000, depending on the wood, and chairs can be customized by inlays, engravings, carvings, and combinations of woods. In September, we completed rocking chair numbered 4,000.

We offer a satisfaction guarantee: if you don't like it, we'll refund your money and pay for shipping both ways. Our clients definitely agree with our quality guarantee, as few have ever returned their rocker. Among our satisfied customers was a former Texas Governor Ann Richards, who sent us a very complimentary letter. And we have won numerous awards, from national CollinsWood Award in 1998 to the 2022 Texas Furniture Makers Show for our Special Edition 30th Anniversary Weeks Rocker.

Though my original intent was to just be a rocking chair maker, pretty soon clients asked for additional furnishings -- dining chairs, tables, desks, and cabinets -- so we have expanded out offerings. We have several dining chair and table designs of long standing, and we are designing more. For established patrons, we build custom desks and cabinets to fit particular spaces.

We remain a family business and committed to making something special for families, to last generation after generation. My son Austin has taken over the day-to-day operations of the shop, making sure that all furniture gets built and delivered on time. I work on improvements to the process: building machines, jigs, fixtures, contraptions, etc. to make the work more efficient, precise, enjoyable, and safer. I also take pictures and try to market.

I invite you to learn more about us at: garyweeks.com/.