T E X A R K A N A M A G A Z I N E
Jude McKeever, Bruce McKeever, Maddox McKeever, Kyle McKeever, Kaci McKeever, Jimmy Graves and Cade Norris
DEEPLY ROOTED BY TIFFANY HORTON, HORTON DES I GN STUDIOS PHOTOS BY MAT T CORNEL IUS
East Texas Grain & Knot owners, Kaci and Kyle McKeever’s beautiful home is full of personal touches, each piece intertwining their family and business. When you dig deeper into their story, you learn it is all about family, faith and staying focused. When the McKeevers married, they decided to rent and save as much money as possible to one day purchase land. After they purchased the land and paid it off, they saved again, this time to build a shop they could live in until they were ready to build a home. They planned for the shop to eventually be Kyle’s hobby and hangout space. However, God had other plans for them and much bigger plans for the shop. It was in the day-to-day grind of a desk job that McKeever realized he needed a creative outlet, and the corporate world was not where he wanted to be. “I knew that I had what I would call ‘a basic, basic, basic understanding of woodworking,’ and that I enjoyed it,” he said. In their early days together, his first big woodworking project was a dining table he made for Kaci when they were dating. In hindsight, he says, “It was a horrible table, but I had fun. Later,
I made a bed, not even thinking about how I would get it out of the apartment when we moved. We ended up having to cut it into pieces and basically just destroy it,” he laughed. With a little more experience and since they were already living in the 1,600 square foot workspace, McKeever recalls thinking, “I already own a shop, so maybe I can start making and selling some small projects after work for fun and make a little extra money too.” One of the first pieces he sold was actually a piece of pallet art. When the piece sold, McKeever said it was a great feeling; he thought, “Cool! I made something, and she liked it.” He was hooked. He created a Facebook group and came up with the name East Texas Grain & Knot because he wanted something simple and straightforward. “I didn’t want anything catchy. I just wanted it to sound old-fashioned, like a woodworking company.” As people started buying from the group, McKeever started spending more and more time dreaming up his next projects. “I would get home from work at 5:00, hang out and eat dinner, then about 7:00 or 8:00 I would head into the shop,” he explained. Often, he would
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