Everything here is made by hand, one at a time, mostly to order. That changes a few things compared to buying off a shelf, and I'd rather set them out plainly than bury them.
These terms are between you and Harley's Handmade, LLC, a Kentucky limited liability company in Owingsville, Kentucky. When it says "I" or "me" below, that's Harley Ritchie, and I'm the one who builds it.
Every piece is cut, built and finished by hand out of real cedar. Grain, color and knots vary from board to board, and the same stain sits differently on different wood. The photographs on this site are of pieces I actually built, so yours will look like them — but it will not be an identical copy, and small differences in grain, tone and marking are normal and expected, not defects.
If you want something as close as possible to a particular photo, say so and I'll pick the board with that in mind.
The prices on the shop page are what those pieces cost, in US dollars. Options that add to the price — a finish, a matching stand — are shown with what they add before you add anything to your cart.
A piece becomes custom when it's built to your own measurements, your own design, a stain I don't carry, a painted finish, or when it's engraved. Custom work is always quoted before I start, and you see the number before anything is cut.
My custom rate is $45 an hour plus materials at cost plus 25%, with half down to get on the bench. If the job changes along the way, I tell you what that does to the price before I carry on.
Because a custom piece is drawn, measured and cut for you specifically, that time and material is spent whether the order goes ahead or not — which is what the deposit is for. I'd rather say that up front than bury it.
Laser engraving is quoted on the engraving itself. A name is not the same job as a scene, so there's no flat price for it. Send me the wording or the artwork and I'll price it properly.
Kentucky sales tax is added where the law requires it. Where tax applies, it's shown before you pay — it's never folded into the price without being named.
Card payments are handled by my payment provider, not by me. I never see your card number. For larger custom work I'll usually send an invoice, and a bank transfer costs us both less than a card does.
An order isn't confirmed until the payment has actually gone through, or until I've said in writing that I'm starting on it.
Pieces listed in the shop are ones I keep on hand or have built and waiting on finish, so you're waiting on me to sand, stain and box — not weeks. Custom work depends entirely on what it is, and I'll give you an honest estimate when I quote. If something slips, I'll tell you rather than let you wonder.
Shipping is priced per item and shown on every product page, added at checkout, with nothing padded. Each piece is packed on its own, so an order with two pieces carries two lots of postage — the cart adds it up before you pay. Smaller items may travel together in one package — that doesn't change the price. Custom pieces are quoted with the shipping included, worked out on the size and finished weight of the piece I build you.
Once it's with the carrier, how fast it moves is up to them. If it goes missing or arrives damaged, that's still my problem to help with — see below.
Free pickup at the Marathon station next to Ace Hardware in Owingsville. Order at least 3 days ahead and pick a time at checkout. If you're in Winchester, Mt. Sterling or Morehead, message me instead and I'll meet you — no charge for that either.
I don't take returns, and I'd rather say so plainly here than at the worst moment.
The reason is the wood. Every board is different before I ever touch it, and once a piece leaves my shop it starts reacting to wherever it ends up living. Humidity, sun, how cold your winters get, whether it sits under a porch roof or out in the open — a swing on a covered porch here in Owingsville and the same swing on a deck somewhere dry will not be the same piece after a month. I can't put that back on the shelf and sell it to the next person as new, and I wouldn't want to.
So there's no change-of-mind return and no restocking window.
Nothing leaves my shop that isn't right. I cut it, build it, finish it and look it over before it goes in the box. I don't send out work I'm not willing to put my name on, and that is the part I will stand behind: the piece is correct when it leaves here.
What I don't run is a repair, replace or refund policy. Not because I stop caring the moment it's boxed, but because I won't write down a promise about an outcome I can't see coming. Every situation is genuinely different — what happened, when, how the piece was used and kept, and whether it's something I can put right from a bench in Owingsville.
What I will say, and I mean it: tell me. Call or email, send me a photo, and I'll try, to the best of my ability, to remedy the situation. That's an honest effort rather than a guarantee, and I'd rather give you the honest version than one that reads better and then lets you down.
Some things aren't faults at all, and it's fairer to say so here than to argue about it later: normal variation in the wood — grain, color, knots, how a stain sits on a particular board — is covered further up this page. Neither is ordinary wear, nor damage to a piece that's been left out in the weather.
If the carrier loses it. Once a parcel is out of my hands it's in the shipping company's, and a lost or destroyed parcel has to be worked out with them — that's a claim against the carrier, and they decide it, not me. What I'll do is file it, chase it, and keep you told. Get in touch the moment the tracking stops making sense rather than waiting it out, because these claims have deadlines.
None of this takes away rights the law gives you as a consumer in Kentucky.
These are real wood, finished by hand. Left outside in Kentucky weather, cedar will gray and a finish will fade — that's the wood doing what wood does, not a fault. Bring it in over the worst of the winter and it'll last a very long time.
If you want to keep it looking close to the day it arrived, here's what actually matters:
None of that is fussy work. A wash in the spring and a coat every other year and one of these will outlast the deck it's sitting on.
The photographs are of my own work and the designs are mine. Please don't copy them to sell your own version. If you'd like to share a photo of a piece I made you, I'd be glad of it.
I'll do what I said I'd do and I'll stand behind my work. What I can't do is take responsibility for things outside my hands — a carrier losing a parcel, a piece used for something it wasn't built for, or weather. Nothing here takes away rights the law gives you as a consumer in Kentucky.
What I collect and what I do with it is set out in full on my privacy page, and the short version is this: I do not sell, rent, trade or share your information with anybody outside this shop. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to another business. The only outsiders who touch it are the few services that carry a message or take a card, and they only get what they need for that job.
If you give me your email through this website, I may use it to tell you about my own work — a new piece, a batch just off the bench, or a deal I'm running. That's the only thing I'll email you for, and it only ever comes from me. Reply and say stop and you're off it, and that doesn't affect an order you've already placed.
These terms are governed by the law of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
If I change how I do things, this page gets updated and the date at the top changes. The terms that apply to your order are the ones on this page when you placed it.