Vessel Barn is open in Oak Tree Plaza, Lexington (777 Athens Road) for limited hours. For more information, visit vesselbarn.com.
The scent of hand-poured candles welcomed customers to a new locally owned business in Oak Tree Plaza this past weekend.
Vessel Barn, owned and operated by Dustin and Tara Wood, officially opened on July 5, offering a curated selection of handmade home goods. The small business specializes in hand-poured soy candles and wax melts along with custom apparel including shirts, hats and handbags.
Opening day also featured door prizes, candy treats and a gift raffle for customers to explore the store’s products.
“Just something to kind of get our product out there and known for the community,” Tara said. “But just something simple and sweet.”
For Dustin, a U.S. Navy veteran and lifelong craftsman, the idea of opening a storefront had been years in the making.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to own my own business,” he said. “So over time, I eventually built up the courage to finally open up this store and make things and sell it.”
Dustin grew up in Athens and his wife, Tara, a payroll analyst at the University of Georgia, was raised near Sandy Cross. After years away while Dustin served in the Navy, the couple moved back to the county in 2008 to raise their two children.
A name born from Dustin pouring wax into vessels at their family barn, Vessel Barn hopes to provide a personal, locally made alternative for residents who might otherwise travel to Athens for gifts and home goods.
“Our overall goal is to be kind of like a mercantile where we have different types of home goods, but the main goal is to maintain at least 90% handmade and locally made,” Dustin said.
The couple’s mission comes with its drawbacks, bringing challenges to the first-time business owners.
“(It) is a burden because you have to make everything right, and run the store at the same time,” Dustin said. “So we’re going to have to navigate that and figure that out.”
Though woodworking pieces aren’t part of the store’s inventory, Dustin hopes to expand Vessel Barn’s offerings to include his handcrafted woodwork in the future. Having built the store’s interior structures himself, he’s eager to add items such as wooden candlesticks, blanket ladders and other home goods to the shelves.
“I firmly believe it’s no accident that my last name is exactly the medium I’m passionate about working with — WOOD,” according to Vessel Barn’s About Us page.
For the Woods, opening Vessel Barn was about the community as much as it was about craftsmanship. The couple hopes to bring quality goods to Oglethorpe County along with something unexpected.
“It's me and Tara’s business, but the big bulky guy is making the handbags. That’s the funny part,” he said.