Village Squire, 1979-04, Page 15Once upon a time Canadian furniture was turned out of small
shops where craftsmen lovingly worked wood by hand. The
emphasis then was on the man, not the machine.
Recent years have seen a return to that kind of craftsmanship
in a few places. One of those places is the picturesque,
out-of-the-way village of Fordwich, nestled by the Maitland
River just off Highway 87. Here in a converted bowling alley, two
young Goderich natives have returned to the old ways and to the
old styles of producing furniture. Well, not completely to the old
ways. Here in the spacious shop the floorspace is occupied by
various modern power tools to make the job of woodworking
easier but at Maitland Woodworking there is no assembly line,
no streamlined production. The emphasis here is on men
working with wood.
Bob and Bill Wallace aren't your usual craftsmen. They're
both community college graduates in business administration.
Both are sons of a doctor. Neither really showed a great deal of
interest in woodworking as a boy even though much of the
equipment now in the shop was in their father's workshop. It was
an interest that just grew over the years and the idea of turning it
into a business came about later and almost by accident.
Bob was busy building homes in Goderich when he injured his
knee. "I was more for looking for some kind of project while I
was convalescing and I got really interested in it. It was an ideal
hobby project. This stuff that we're building could fit into almost
any home.
The two got more and more interested in the work as they went
along. They went through their own self-taught apprenticeship
program before they decided that they could make it a fulltime
occupation. When they made the decision they purchased more
equipment.
At first Bob was still finishing off his building projects in
Goderich and his wife was teaching in Listowel so they split the
difference and lived in Lucknow. Bob was doing the work by
himself at the time. hobbling around virtually learning how to
walk again. Brother Bill came up to Lucknow to work in the shop
on weekends and found he liked the work. So when Bob and his
wife moved to Fordwich to be closer to his wife's work, Bill
moved with them. They now live in an old store where Bob and
his wife live upstairs while Bill makes his home in one half of the
downstairs and the other is taken up by a showroom for the
business.
That showroom was the first workshop for the brothers after
they moved to Fordwich. "We outgrew it in about a month,"
Bob says. "In fact we were almost physically thrown out of there
by my good wife when she found out that sawdust is an insidious,
permeating thing. She got kind of sick and tired of cleaning a
quarter -inch of dust off everything every night when she came
home."
It was two years since the brothers set up shop. In that time
they've found business brisk. Last year they visited many of the
craft shows in the area showing off samples of their work. Last
September they had a booth at the International Plowing
Match at Wingham which proved a great success, an almost
embarassing success.
"We were still catching up at Christmas time on orders from
the Plowing Match," Bob says. "We just worked from dawn 'til
dusk and sometimes all night trying to get things finished up in
time. It was almost embarassing, he says when the pieces were
finally built and delivered because it was so late because they
had been swamped with business.
Even at more usual times they have about a month's work
Tined up ahead of them. They've avoided taking on other
employees because of the problems that entails. They prefer to
work by themselves. even though at times they get more work
than they can handle.
There are few economies of scale here. "We've never had a
production run of anything," Bob says. "There are a couple of
things on the cook here. things that we could perhaps make five
or six of just to have some at the craft shows. but usually we
never build more than two of anything. It's all custom stuff and
each other.
Why not a co-ordinating
bedspread?
Wallcoverings & fabrics
to match or compliment.
Drapery hardware by Kirsch.
it
Carpets & flooring to please &
enhance.
ENJOY A FEW MINUTES WITH US
AT
April 1979. Village Squire 13