Wood Works

The Wood Works of Cedar Springs. was founded in the summer of 2001. We started out as a custom woodworking shop. In 2004 we moved to a 2, 000 square foot building. It was split into 2 sections by the previous tenants. We utilized the back of the building for manufacturing and the front section for applying stain, paint and varnish. This lasted for about 2 months. People started coming into the store. Most were looking for the previous tenants and were a bit more than surprised with what they found. It didn't look like a store at all. Just a bunch of furniture and toys in the style so typical of the cabins and cottages found in northern Michigan. And there was the heavy smell of sawdust. Most of them liked what they saw, loved the smell of the place and asked if we sold this stuff. We were not expecting any visitors let alone customers. As the shock wore off we said, Sure, what can we make for you. We still had no inventory so all our jobs were still custom orders. But as the summer progressed we started making two of everything. Then we started making items for the retail side of the business. About this time other business owners in the area started telling us about the local festival in October and the tens of thousands of people who would be here. We needed to get ready for this event and we didn't have enough inventory to fill even a corner of the store. We needed a new approach to grow the business and fill the store. That's where our local artists came to the rescue. We opened our store to them on a consignment basis. Their art brought in more people and our custom work introduced our customers to the work of the local artists. It was a perfect match made just in time for the people who came through our store during the one-day festival. In September 2005 we decided to build a website with photos of past projects. Now our customers could see what we had created for other people and get a better idea of what we could do for them. In 2006 we had over 45, 000 hits on our website. In March 2007 we started adding the shopping cart to our website. December 2008 has generated over 43, 000 hits, growth X 12 in two years. Growth of this magnitude is wonderful, but we still enjoy that personal connection with each of our clients. While our main emphasis has been on custom designed furniture we have developed our own line of hand made pine, oak and cedar furniture and accessories. The unique aspect of this line is that no two pieces are the same. The texture and knotting, something we look for, adds a distinctive northern flavor to each piece we produce. I know that you will be as pleased with your purchase as we were when we created it. All of our unpainted pieces are identified with our unique brand.