Who Are We

The idea for making instrument stands started in 1998 when I began learning to play the cello. After months of taking several minutes removing my instrument, bow, rosin etc. out of the case and then the same amount of time to put it all back I realized I needed a stand. This way if I only had 15 minutes to play I wouldn’t use most of my time getting everything out and then putting it away.

Looking at what was available on the market I found many functional metal stands and some wooden ones but none that my wife or I felt we wanted in our living room next to our other furniture. Although my beginner’s instrument was not an expensive antique it was still a work of art and I wanted a stand that would complement its inherent beauty and not look out of place.

After about a year of making sketches and kicking around ideas I finally came up with a design for a cello stand that I really liked. Producing the stands was not a problem because of the many years of experience working in manufacturing and design of consumer products along with help from friends like long time wood worker and artist John Mori to teach me the wood finishing techniques that I needed.

Since my daughter Elizabeth plays the violin and my son Ryan plays a guitar I spent the last couple of years using this same strategy to design a stand for these string instruments as well.

And so “Designs by Grace” was born. Located on a quiet stretch of land on Tucker Mountain in Arkansas, Grace has been producing beautifully designed hardwood instrument stands for nearly a decade. Our goal is to design and produce the most unique, beautiful and high quality guitar stands, violin stands, and cello stands on the market.