Let the Amish Do It

In addition to the home improvement projects that I mentioned in my last post, I am also in the market for some new furniture.  In the living room there are a couple of end tables which were purchased by my parents decades ago.

They look rather outdated.  Although they were not cheap pieces of furniture, they are not built of solid wood, so I doubt that they would ever have any antique value.  In some places the veneer is chipped off.  It is time for a change.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a half dozen furniture stores, and I could not find anything that I liked.  I wanted something fairly traditional... neither too old-fashioned and fussy nor so trendy that it would quickly go out of style.  Size was also a problem.  Everything that I saw was either too wide or too narrow.  Ideally I wanted the tables to be a few inches narrower so as to make the room a little less crowded, but still wide enough to place a few family picture books and treasured items.  (The fudge dish next to the lamp, for example, belonged to my great-grandmother.)  

After a fruitless search, I returned home and looked at Google Maps.  I found a store not too far from me which makes custom Amish furniture.  I figured that although it might be much more expensive, having the pieces custom-made would probably be the only way to get what I wanted.

A week ago Friday I drove to the store.  The place is only open four days a week since the owner is frequently traveling to the workshops in the Amish country south of here.

Inside I saw a floor model that I liked and which was on sale.  The price was not much higher than what you would pay at any other good quality furniture store for an item that probably would not be solid wood.  However, the color and the size were not right.  The owner said that he could have the tables custom-made, and that he would sell them to me at the sale price.  I picked out the finish, gave him the size specifications, and placed my order.  The only downside is that I will have to wait for about two months.

While I was there I also asked about having another piece of furniture custom-made.  Some years ago, I had purchased an inexpensive, assemble-yourself, rack for storing my CDs and DVDs.  My collection outgrew that rack, and I bought a much larger and more expensive unit.  I still have that little rack and I use it to display some knickknacks from my travels.  

  

However, I wished that I could find a nice piece of furniture similar in size to it.  (A bookshelf would be much too large for that corner.)  So, I showed the owner the picture and gave him the dimensions.  When he goes down to Amish country, he will ask the woodworkers how much it would cost to make a similar shelf that would match my end tables.