Patrick took every shop class available in Junior High and High School. His crowning achievement was building a Foosball table and casting the players (who wore Top Hats for a more formal effect) from aluminum.
The adult Patrick got a “real” job in the insurance industry, prompting his purchase of a personal computer in the late 1970s, which he immediately took apart and rebuilt. Through the years, he taught himself programming and started “building” computers himself.
He never lost his interest in woodworking and design so he also built a good portion of the furniture in his home. Getting involved in the Maker movement through his local community maker space – Hammerspace – allowed Patrick to combine his talent for building and design with his fascination for technology and engineering. Along the way, he learned to silk screen and design and build tube amplifiers and stereo speakers.
One laser cutter, CNC router, and silk screen press later and Romany House was born, designing and manufacturing unique, collapsible, birch, storage boxes, including boxes designed specifically for storing vinyl LPs, comic books, six and four pack caddies and coolers. He went through several versions of his collapsible box and caddy design before he settled on the current popular designs. For every finished product he produces, there are at least another 10 somewhere in the development stage.
Romany House also creates display designs, centerpieces, and gifts for event planners, florists and retail shops out of wood, bamboo, and Lucite. He’s designed and built full sized trees in retail stores, created 4 foot lucite flower vases and pop art tablescapes and centerpieces for a contemporary art gala at a local art museum, mass produced and privately branded his boxes (in his basement) for customers to sell at large events, created unique bamboo boxes and albums for an engineering firm to use in their bids and helped dozens of other makers create and display their own unique products.
