Acerca de
About
I was raised on a farm in Illinois in the 40’s and 50’s, one of eleven children and attended a one room school. I met my wife, Pat at the University of Illinois and married in 1961 and we are celebrating our 60th this year. I worked for a hydraulics manufacturing company in Ames for 45 yrs. before retiring in 2007.
I really started making furniture in the late 1980’s by removing barn boards from fallen barns and cutting down trees and sawing them into boards. I built a workshop and began making furniture. Beginning with small items such as personalized chests for my eleven grandkids to complete walnut bedroom suits as wedding gifts for my daughters. I also furnished our home with handcrafted furniture.
I soon was making more furniture than our family and friends could use so began looking for a new outlet to sell my products. In 2001 we bought a building in Huxley and opened Blumsters on Main for a large area to display and sell my barnwood and hardwood (walnut and oak) furniture. We sold the store in 2010.
I currently sell my handcrafted furniture at Arts and Crafts shows, via my website, Facebook and most importantly by word of mouth of my customers.
All of my pieces are one-of-a-kind, handcrafted using conventional power tools and using barnwood and hardwoods from central Iowa.
My furniture is known for its high quality and fine finish. They are made from solid wood, not pressed wood boards or plywood, constructed with screws and glue, not staples and they are finished with a hard cabinet varnish for a durable hard finish.
There can be a financial reward making and selling handcrafted furniture, but the real reward is seeing a customer’s expression when he or she rubs her hand across the piece and realizes that piece, just a few years ago, was a part of a farmer’s barn or a tree in a local timber.
