When Elena Delle Donne isn’t scoring on people seemingly at will (for 18.4 points per game) or grabbing a rebound (about 7 a game) or photographing her dog Wrigley (who has 6800 Instagram followers), she can be found on her roof building her small business: Custom furniture making.
The reigning WNBA MVP recently ventured into making furniture with her new company ‘DelleDonneDesigns’, a project that began in the offseason with a visit to her home in Delaware.
“I have a friend in Delaware who was making really cool designs and kind of just using them as wall art and wasn’t really doing much with them. And then another friend and myself, we saw the designs and said ‘these are incredible'”, she said. “And we needed a dining room table so we were like ‘is there any way we can do one of these designs and turn one of them into a table?’ So we all put our heads together and just did it.”
They posted the finished product to Instagram because, as Delle Donne said, it was just “a cool design.”
“The response was incredible,” she said. “We were like maybe we could make a business out of it and see where it goes.”
The trio figured out their process through a bit of trial and error, but now have it down to a science. Since building that first table and launching DelleDonneDesigns in May, the Chicago Sky star said they’ve sold around 10 pieces of custom furniture. The company designs and builds the furniture and even has an app where potential customers can browse designs.
So where does she find the time? That, Delle Donne said, is the benefit of having two business partners who have more time to build and craft the furniture. But when she comes home from practice, she said, she can be found building her furniture on the rooftop of her apartment. Wrigley (the dog) will come up with her and watch the whole process. It is a great way, she said, to think about something other than basketball.
“It’s an outlet for me and it’s really enjoyable,” Delle Donne said. “[When I’m working], I’m truly just focused on the table and having fun doing that.”
Delle Donne sends a handwritten note with each piece that goes to a customer. But sometimes that single signature isn’t enough. “There’s people who have asked me to sign the table after we made it,” she said. “So that’s always interesting. We recently just got a wood brander with my logo on it, so that might be the classier way of putting my stamp on a table.”
As for her teammates? They think it’s great and are already asking if she’s going to make them furniture when they purchase a house or new apartment.
“I sure am,” she tells them. “Just got to put your order in.”
