When I first started playing Mahjong a few years ago, I didn’t know a lot about the game, but I quickly learned one thing… I needed more room at the table!

My husband, Michael, and I enjoy doing all of our do-it-yourself projects together around the house. Our garage is like an outpost of your local home improvement super store. Literally in minutes I had a lovely piece of wood perfectly sized to my exact 42” x 42” specifications. That, however, was not enough. You see, I am an artist. I can turn just about anything into an art project. Whether it’s someone else’s old, discarded chandelier, a piece of furniture, or wall that needs a collage of family photos, I can make a mess, and eventually a masterpiece, out of just about anything.

For our first Valentine’s Day, Michael bought me my first wood burning tool from that orange home improvement store that’s on everyone’s main drag. I burned it up in no time. Got the upgrade. That didn’t last either. Finally, got a professional grade system. Yep. You guessed it. I had to decorate my new mahjong table! I put a dragon in the middle, experimented with a different border in each corner, stained it, coated it with polyurethane, and I was ready to go.

Then the girls arrived for mahjong. “I want one!” “I want one!” “Make ME one!” Suddenly, along with all of my orders for wood burned charcuterie boards, lazy susans, Christmas ornaments, etc., Michael and I couldn’t keep up with the orders for mahjong tables!

A friend in Texas saw one of our epoxy coated tables in a Facebook reel and ordered 2 and asked if I’d ship them. That’s when we decided to deliver them ourselves and sign up to be venders at a tournament in Dallas. We printed business cards, got ourselves a pop up banner, and the rest is history!

-Kim Yerkey