This summer, Krownlab was the first local business spotlighted in the Portland Business Journal’s new series, Meet the Makers. PBJ got a behind-the scenes peek at our production team assembling our Oden and Baldur hardware, experienced the extensive testing we put each of our products through to ensure we lead the industry in quality, and toured our brand new building in Northwest Portland. Since then, the series has gone on to cover great local businesses including OpenFab, Time & Oak, and our friends at ADX.
Here’s an excerpt of the article:
In Portland, Andrén felt he wanted to finally realize his dream of living in a large industrial loft space. Yet the Pearl had already been developed and he felt his dream's costs were out of reach.
So Andrén changed course and decided to build a house that felt like a loft on a piece of land he'd purchased in Portland's West Hills.
"I wanted to make sure I made the most of every square foot of the house, and sliding doors became an obvious solution," Andrén said.
"Again I couldn’t find what I liked or could afford. In the market, there are very high quality European product, most from Germany, low-end rustic traditional sliding barn door hardware that didn’t fit the aesthetics of my house."
So, being an industrial designer, Andrén set out to design items for his home. What he came up with was a set of sliding barn-door hardware that soon attracted international attention and magazine coverage. And after two-plus years, the calls and interest in his work hadn't ended. After a little research he realized there was indeed a market for his design. Hence, the birth of Krownlab.
To read the article in full, and to read about other local businesses in the Meet the Makers series, click here.
