Tyrel Bleifus. Photos: Chris Emeott
Tyrel Bleifus shares his distinctive approach to furniture making.
Afton furniture maker Tyrel Bleifus understands how to strike a balance between his imagination and the natural beauty of the earth. His business, Ty’s Timberworks, is grounded in a deep relationship with the trees he aims to give a second life. Each hand-carved bench, chair and stool is molded with the unique character of the wood in mind. “I just want to live a peaceful life and bring beautiful things into the world,” Bleifus says.
Growing up in a family of tradesmen in southeast Minnesota provided an informal, yet formative, education for Bleifus. “My dad would let me grab all his plywood off-cuts and run off into the woods. He let me build whatever I wanted,” Bleifus says. This even included a three-story treehouse Bleifus built when he was just 8 years old.
His path led him away from woodworking for a time. He attended the University of St. Thomas, where he pursued a degree in psychology and business. Then he moved to Denver and worked in solar and user experience (UX) design. But in 2020, a move back to Minnesota with his wife, Jen, encouraged him to chart a new course, and he launched Ty’s Timberworks out of his at-home workshop.
All Ty’s Timberworks pieces are named for bodies of water. This bench is from his Kawishiwi River Collection.
Bleifus considers it a duty and an honor to create art that endures, and chairs are his special passion. With each new creation, Bleifus is acutely aware of its potential to facilitate life’s precious moments. One such piece, a St. Croix River Rocker, is integral to the Bleifus family routine; it’s the place where their young son is fed and nurtured. “[Trees] feel immortal,” Bleifus says. “They don’t beg to be beautiful, but in their function, they become that.”
Last year, about nine months before the birth of his son, Bleifus sustained a near-fatal injury while felling a tree. Using a chainsaw is a regular part of the job for Belfius, but he recalls a rare moment. “The tip of the chainsaw jumped and hit my left arm,” he says. The cut barely missed major arteries, and Bleifus clung to consciousness as he was rushed to the hospital. “I was very close to dying, and so I should have been thinking about that, but [instead] I was thinking, ‘What have I done? I work with my hands,’” he says.
Tyrel Bleifus spends the cold months in the workshop, refining new designs and building up a stock to sell at area festivals and events when the weather warms.
In recovery, Bleifus found new ways to reconnect with his work. “I carved 100 spoons to try to get my hand to work again,” he says. Now, his hand is back to 100 percent ability. “Every time I finish something, I look at it, and I think, ‘You’re still able to make that.’ And I have gratitude,” he says.
Bleifus shares that his calling is not about making a good living, “but a good life.” His greatest hope is that his furniture will leave a mark—not in the interest of his own legacy, but for life’s continuation. “I’ll be gone, and no one will remember that I made it, but it’s almost like a moral thing: it has to endure.”
Ty’s Timberworks
Instagram: @tystimberworks
