A Little History about the Wood Sampler
The Wood Sampler
We are currently in our 14th year of business selling solid wood furniture and wood items at a location in downtown Fond du Lac that has been in our family for just over a hundred years.
First of all, how did we become involved in the wood furniture business? About 25 years ago, my husband and I (mostly my husband) started a very small “hobby” lumber business. Trees were cut, and boards sawed and dried in a small kiln built on our home property. The drying process required getting up in the middle of the night over the course of a month or so to keep the wood stove fired up. We could dry about a thousand board feet of lumber at a time. We had pieces built by some friends and local Amish to give as family gifts. (Of course we experimented on family first!) We finished the pieces ourselves. After a decade or so of doing this, we decided to scale down the lumber business and concentrate on putting together a nice collection, or “sampling” of handcrafted solid wood furniture pieces and smaller items, built by many different truly talented woodworkers. We set up shop in a 3-car garage at our country home.
Just as this was taking shape, my dad was nearing retirement and sold his 3rd generation clothing & home furnishings business. The new owner relocated, but dad kept the Main Street building that had been home to his business for over 85 years. When we moved in to this building with our furniture, we became the fourth generation of retail at the same location in downtown Fond du Lac. We could expand our sampling of furniture pieces to both sell right off the floor, as well as provide examples of the endless variations that can be special ordered. The main floor of the building still displays the wildlife and wood carving collections of my grandfather and father, and is a destination for some just to view those!
We have loved serving the people of Fond du Lac and surrounding areas for the past decade and a half. We look forward to the next decade or two! Historic downtown Fond du Lac is home to many unique businesses and buildings, and lots of friendly, hard-working small business owners filling “niches” with the goods and services they provide.