Love It Again Furniture by Leslie is a family business that is run full time with my husband Jim.
We recycle good quality furniture that has seen better days and we make it beautiful again. Whether it is out of style, damaged or just unattractive to the person who owns it, we see the potential and transform every piece and make it one of a kind.
I have always loved antiques and anything made of wood. I worked for a furniture store for a few years and I saw the different degrees of quality in the furniture we sold and nothing beats solid wood. I also know how much more solid wood costs and it should cost more because it is better quality.
We search, purchase, pickup and then store every piece of furniture that we can manage.
Then comes the fun part. We imagine how they could look, repair them and refinish them. We are then able to offer furniture that looks brand new and is one of a kind. We do this all for a fraction of the price when compared to buying new from a store.
Our business began quite unexpectedly. We had a wedding in our backyard a few years ago where we had bought old antique pieces because my daughter wanted a "shabby chic" style wedding. However, after the wedding we had a hard time selling the pieces for what we thought they should be worth. My daughter suggested we try painting the pieces with chalk paint, which made a huge difference. I enjoyed it and I started making my own chalk paint and sold the odd piece here and there. Jim helped me in the evenings after working all day at his other job. He can literally repair anything! He is an excellent painter and the muscle behind our brand!
After realizing Love it Again' potential , I decided to turn my passion for furniture into a full time career. It may sound cliche but, "when you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life". One thing led to another and I began refinishing furniture full time. We just jumped in, no venture capital or anything like that, just finding deals and bringing our imagination to life.
Things began picking up, we had requests for Custom work and so Jim decided to quit his job and give this business our full effort! I worked in my kitchen and Jim worked in the garage.
If only we had a dollar for every time someone said how excited they were for their new furniture! Custom work is especially gratifying in that you are taking something the person knows is worth keeping, a lot of times it is a family treasure, and instead of leaving it in the garage or basement, it becomes part of their life and home. Our customers start with one piece and then they keep coming back with more pieces to be refinished. We have customers with +5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 pieces. One of our customers told their son that she was addicted to us!
Since both of us were full time we were able to become more creative, which led Jim to begin building custom creations. We (and when I say we I mean Jim, I don't build!) loved turning a dresser into a cat bed, a dining table into 2 wall tables, headboard/foot board into a bench, potting tables from old tables and barn wood, pet beds from drawers... the list goes on and on. Recently we have begun selling more Decor and turning old frames into magnetic boards, barn wood into wine racks, driftwood into candle holders, wood into trays, and old windows into chalk boards. All of our decor is unique and we take pride in recycling as many old pieces as possible.
We love working from our home because it has allowed us to see our grandson as much as possible. He has already started to paint at the young age of 3 and is getting better day after day! We store our finished pieces in our living room, and believe me when I tell you, you will never know what will be in there!
We have 5 talented kids that are all very smart and have the entrepreneur spirit. They want us to expand and they are willing to help us do it. We have a Power Engineer, a Director of Operations, a Sales and Marketing professional/Personal Trainer, a Photographer and a soon to be Director of Communications and Marketing professional!
We love being creative, we love saving old solid furniture, and most of all we love our customers and fan base. We name our furniture because each piece is special to us and we hope our customers value each piece as much as we do. Love It Again is more than just a furniture business, it is a way of life.