Andy Gregg may not have reinvented the wheel, but he has reinterpreted it.
Gregg owns Bike Furniture Designs, which transforms recycled bicycle parts into sleek, eco-friendly furniture.
Combining skills developed in art school — he is fascinated by early-20th-century furniture design — with mechanical chops he began polishing at age 10, Gregg sells his pieces on bikefurniture.com and through a smattering of retailers.
Gregg has been making the furniture since 1991, but it wasn’t until 2004 that revenue picked up enough to allow him to quit his carpentry job and focus on his business, based in Marquette, Mich. Last year, he says, revenue hit the “low five figures.