At Work
My
name is Kelly Hanna, I guess you could call me the chief cook and bottle
washer. I still work on the projects
we
build. Josh Cummings is our lead carpenter....Vern Hawkins and Bill Erwin
are our two other
staff
members, coming in when we need them for the bigger projects we build.
No sub-contractors are ever
used
in our company.
I
started working with wood in 1970 in high school shop class. I still have
the two projects I built in that
class
to this day. At that time, my father had retired from his VP position at
Piggly Wiggly and all of us
retired
to Alamogordo, NM. My mother was one who would redo every house we lived
in. I got to see
the
pitfalls most contractors present their clients....I guess you can say
I learned what not to do really fast.
My
mother would be livid at times with them, forging my goal to never do that
to a client. Together with
my
dad's never-ending 'do it right the first time' advice, my work ethic was
set in stone.
I
went to college in Las Cruces, NM in 1975 for two years and studied drafting
with the intention of being
an
architect, but along the way, I found that I really enjoyed working outside
with a master carpenter.
It
wasn't long after that realization that I built my first deck. Working
with him and seeing his client's reaction
to
the finished product was all it took.
Last
year we were building a cedar deck in Lakewood and I had been running errands
for materials.
We
were about to finish the deck in the picture below. I rounded the corner
and the guys were putting the
skirt
boards on. I took one look and said "that's art". One of the guys said,
"no it's a deck"
and
they all laughed. I thought, Art Deck-O
as a play on words of the art deco style of construction.
Our
name was changed the very next day.
The
new name really reflects what I love to do....design deckspaces to fit
every yard and lifestyle. Thanks to
the
way I was brought up, I got both the artistic side and the work-ethic side
balanced. Thanks goes to
both
Mom and Dad for that!!
I
take time out of everyday to visit several woodworking forums on the web
where I both contribute and
learn
new procedures. I also keep up with the industry via two deck builder's
magazines. Doing this keeps me
on
the forefront of knowledge about the business, especially new materials
and procedures.
At Home
My
wife's name is Jana Hanna. We celebrated our 10th anniversary
on
September 21, 2007.
Our
home in Terrell was built in 1900 by a man who came from Tennessee in a
covered wagon. He built it
for
his daughter and her husband, then went back home. They lived in it for
73 years. The people we bought
the
house from lived in it from 1973 til 2005, making us the third owners.
We are well on our way to making the
home
our own. We've painted every room in the house, planted 28 Pines and and
two Crepe Myrtals,
changed
the entire focus of the backyard to an outdoor living area complete with
4 smokers,
a
hot tub deck and a wine bar deck for Jana.
Future
plans include 950 sq.ft. of additional decking, two full length pergolas
across the back and sides
of
the house. A lot of our materials for these projects have come from recycled
materials including
600
sq. ft. of decking and the entire 320' fence run.
Our Hobbies
Jana
has her own artistic outlet as you can see on her page on the site. She
makes the most beautiful
floral
window shadowboxes from old wooden windows. She hung two of them outside
our back door, I told
her
they would make great outdoor 'deck art'. Her other hobby is singing karaoke.
We got to our friend's
show
every Wednesday and Friday nights...Jana is a great little singer!
My
hobbies are many, I love woodworking and build a ton of things at home.
Every year I build my friends
something
new and unusual. One year it was Cedar log cabin birdhouses, the next,
exotic wood
wind
chimes. I also love to work in our yard. I have so far increased our deck
square footage from 450
to
over 900. I have a great workshop in the back yard which I plan to add
on to next year.
Our
favorite thing to do in our time off each spring and fall is going camping.
Beaver's Bend is our favorite place,
Hot
Springs, where we spent our honeymoon, is second, but the rest are right
here in Texas. We have
been
to Caddo Lake, Atlanta [Texas] State Park, Lake Whitney and a few others.
We are going to try to visit
as
many new parks in Texas as we can the next few years, mostly in the eastern
quadrant.
My
other hobby involves my classic work truck. I have always loved classic
cars and trucks and currently
drive
a 1970 Chevrolet longbed everday. It is a matching numbers truck with all
original body
panels.
It has no rust and has never been in an accident. I also just got a 1967
Shortbed Stepside. This one will
be
a bit faster than the work truck when I build it. A few friends & I
formed a truck club in Terrell named
East
Texas Classics. All of us own classics and work on them ourselves.
Thanks for stopping by...