The Rural Voice, 1989-12, Page 36DIVERSIFICATION
A farm couple
opens an antique
business in their
driving shed
by Susan Greer
Ross and Joan Johnson can't
remember exactly when they decided
to turn their hobby into a business.
But the idea became reality last April
when the Grey County couple opened
Moon Shadow Antiques and Crafts in
a driving shed on their farm near the
village of Badjeros.
Asked when they started to collect
antiques, Joan is quick to reply: "Not
soon enough." But the seeds of the
idea were planted early and began,
for each of them, with a clock.
Joan says she always "had a thing"
about clocks, and when she was about
14, a family acquaintance who knew
of her interest gave her a small brass
and copper day clock. It still works
like a charm and sits on a shelf in the
Johnson's family room.
It started for Ross when the
teacher at his one -room public school
threw out an old oak -framed school
wall clock which didn't work very
well. Ross asked if he could take it
home. The clock still runs only in fits
and starts, but now it too hangs in the
family room.
After they were married, their an-
tique collection began to grow — a
chair made by Ross's great-grand-
father, cranberry glass inherited from
Joan's grandmother, a maple china
cabinet and sideboard Joan bought and
refinished herself.
Certainly part of their incentive
was the fluctuating fortunes of the
farm economy. They hope the antique
business will give them a choice, if
one becomes necessary. The Johnsons
farm 700 acres — some of the land is
rented — and use the crops to feed
their beef cattle and hogs.
Also in the back of their minds,
although they're a long way from
retirement yet, is the knowledge that
their 17 -year-old son Donald wants to
go into farming.
"As our son grows into farming,
we're growing out of it," says Ross.
So their approach to antiques be-
gan to change. At sales they stopped
looking just at things they liked and
started concentrating on what others
liked, on potential resale value, on
good buys.
In the end, the decision to start a
business was forced by the realization
that they had accumulated more an-
tique furniture and boxes of dishes
they could possibly use themselves.
How and where to set up their
shop was the next question. While
Joan dreamed about buying an old log
cabin and relocating it at the foot of
their laneway, the difficulty of finding
a big cabin in good shape and the
expense of moving it were daunting.
A driving shed was the solution.
Since they needed more storage space
for farm machinery anyway, they had
a huge shed built between the house
and barn and partitioned off about a
quarter of it.
Doing most of the work them-
selves, they began to transform about
1,200 square feet of the cement -
floored shed into a showroom. They
incorporated a storage area and a
refinishing room, and Ross built a
large loft with stained-glass insets in
the balustrade.
Next came the actual displays,
which Joan decided to do more or less
thematically. One corner of the main
floor is for kitchen items, including a
wood stove, ice box, butcher's block,
harvest table, and Hoosier baking
cabinet.
Another area represents a dining
room, with sideboard, china cabinet,
and an oak dining -room suite on
which is displayed a set of Noritake
china made in Australia in 1930.
A third section features a Victorian
settee, upholstered chairs, and parlour
tables, while another displays a dea-
con's bench, flat -to -wall cupboards,
and a pine church pew.
The loft contains mainly bedroom
fixtures: cradles, a wicker buggy, and
washstands, with one corner reserved
for reproduction harvest tables, press -
back chairs, and a dry sink.
The reproductions "look good and
cost less," Joan says. "A lot of young
couples can't afford antiques," she
adds.
So why buy antiques?
In addition to its intrinsic and
investment value, the old furniture
34 THE RURAL VOICE