JLFurniture’s very first Blog post.
Wow… 2025
In 1998, how did one self-promote without spending crazy money in some art magazine? The internet was still in its early years—well, at least for me. I did high-end craft shows in hopes of selling spec pieces I built and meeting potential clients who would commission me to build custom pieces. It was sort of working.
Since I had found joy in surfing and playing with the computer, I decided to get myself a website. I searched locally for a website maker—some upstart who wasn’t going to charge me a fortune to get this up and running. In my search, I found a local ad on a website offering webpage-building services. The email address ended in @umass.edu, so I assumed it was a UMASS college student. We emailed and set up an appointment at his house in Amherst, MA.
When I arrived, a guy around my age directed me to go upstairs, and in the room were two 13-year-old boys. Turns out their father was a professor at UMASS, and they were using his email. Well, okay.
I had a brochure in hand, made by a family member, and it looked like it would make a great website. I had a handful of good digital photos and text. We didn’t need to get into design—just copy the brochure. Back then, there were no easy programs to build websites. It was all HTML and writing code. So, I signed up for the GONZO package—the best they had to offer—$125.00. Well, they did a top-notch job, and I paid them extra.
Many months later, when I wanted to expand the site, they had moved on to other things and weren’t interested in doing the work. So, I started researching to see if I could pull it off myself. By then, programs were available that didn’t require writing HTML. They were called WYSIWYG programs—"What You See Is What You Get." Lots of drag-and-drop, adding text into boxes.
I spent endless hours looking at websites to figure out what I wanted. I saw more of what I didn’t want, but finally, I found a design I liked—one that would be easy for visitors to navigate. And away we go… I went at it. So much work, but I enjoyed it and got it done. This site gave me the freedom to add pages at will, and that I did.
That was 2001. Fast forward to 2025, and the website now has 230 pages. It has supplied me with 95% of my work. It’s had some facelifts, but it’s basically the same as day one.
A couple of years ago, I showed the site to a young guy. He said, "Nice… old school." Okay.
Last year, I had a huge fear that the technology under the hood might become unsupported on today’s internet, so I started researching a new site. But I ended up doing a complete overhaul of how the galleries were set up and how the site navigates—yet, it’s still basically the same site.
And here we are.
Five months ago, I thought, "Maybe it’s time to build a brand-new site with a modern program." So, I started my research again. WordPress seemed to be the preferred platform, but after talking about it with friends, Squarespace was suggested as a good fit. That’s what I chose.
Here I was again, scouring the internet to find inspiration for what this new page was going to look like. Déjà vu.
As I write this blog, I am 90% done. It’s been a huge job—about four weeks of logging many hours. It’s been daunting, but also fun. Maybe in a week, the new site will go live, and my old friend will be put to rest… Moving forward.
On a side note, those two 13-year-old boys finished college long ago. I ran into their father a couple of times over the years. I don’t know what they’re doing now, but I know they’re successful.
Okay then… WOOF.
