SUMMER IS FINALLY HERE

It has arrived here in Maine. And we are ready. Today is our first day of sun after 8 days of solid rain. The Huston Garden is growing rapidly, and the flowering trees and bushes here are blooming.

Along with drying out and picking vegetables, we've also been building some furniture. Here's an unusual project I thought you might like to see. We've just finished building these chairs for a local client. She is a lovely woman with French heritage and she wanted some chairs with a Fleur de lis on them to represent her ancestry. Made of solid Honduras Mahogany, these chairs were designed by Bill Huston exclusively for her. They are currently waiting for their turn with our finisher who will make them even more beautiful.

This project has been fun for all of us. Our client visited the shop several times to see the process involved in making her chairs, and Saer Huston was always ready to describe and demonstrate his work for her. She will not only have exquisite chairs, but the memory of being involved in their creation as well.

What can we design exclusively for you?

Bill Huston and the Beth Ellis Cove Gallery

Show Opening

Feather Your Nest: Presentation of Fine Furniture and Fine Art

Huston & Company Furniture

at the Beth Ellis Cove Gallery

Saturday, June 20th, 6-8pm

We are pleased to announce that we are once again joining forces with the Beth Ellis Cove Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine. We have set up a display of a handful of furniture pieces at the gallery and we will soon have a handful of Beth Ellis' lovely paintings here in our showroom. Both furniture and paintings are for sale, and orders can be taken at either location.

On Saturday, June 20th, from 6-8pm, Bill Huston will be on-hand at the Beth Ellis Cove Gallery for a show opening featuring his work alongside the etchings of printmaker/artist Melissa Meredith. At 7pm, Bill will speak for a few minutes about the design process at Huston & Company, and will gladly answer questions throughout the evening. A few additional pieces of furniture will be displayed at the gallery during this show, which runs through the weekend.

The Beth Ellis Cove Gallery is located in Perkins Cove on the second floor above Dock Square Clothiers. Gallery hours are 10am to 4pm with extended hours on weekends. In addition to speaking with Bill Huston regarding custom furniture, Melissa Meredith's etchings, Beth Ellis' original oil paintings and fine art reproductions, Scott Tubby's porcelain vessels, and Rick Meier's wooden bowls will be available for purchase.

We hope you will be able to join us in Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, at the Beth Ellis Cove Gallery.

Three to be Proud of...

As I write, I can hear the 'clank clank' of the horseshoe game outside, a new favorite lunchtime pasttime here at Huston & Company. The horseshoe pit is set up just between the parking lot and the experimental vegetable garden - another Huston pasttime.

These little breaks are short and well deserved. The shop has been spinning with activity these past few months. We've just completed and installed three new projects that we'd like to show you.
First, we finished library tables, seating and a conference table for the Maine Historical Society. It was a priveledge to design and build furniture for this Maine institution as they renovated their research library and completed a new addition. The library is a fantastic space in and of itself, and now adorned with beautiful new furnishings. We designed a new chair for this project, which we are calling the Maine History Chair. We have an example of the Maine History Chair on display in our showroom. Here are a few pictures from the completed library.

We've also recently completed library tables for the Miller Library at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. These tables were designed in large part by Scott Teas, the project architect from the firm TFH Architects in Portland. (If you recently received our postcard highlighting this table design, you'll notice that I didn't credit Scott and TFH by name. That was an oversight on my part, and my apologies go out to Scott, as this is certainly a design to be proud of.) The tables are built of solid cherry with four panels of PaperStone set in to the top. This was the first time we've used PaperStone, and we will definitely use it again. It's a great material - nice to work with and very durable for most applications - and it's GREEN. We thank Scott for giving us the opportunity to give it a try. Take a look at the finished table below. We are very excited about this design, now called The Colby Table.

Lastly, Gill St. Bernard's School in Gladstone, New Jersey, just completed the renovation of their Upper School Library. We've been working with Gill St. Bernard's School for many months now, designing all kinds of furniture pieces and other tidbits here and there for the new library. The library has a wonderful coherence and every detail was considered here. We had a photographer take some formal images for us once the furniture was installed. We hope you like it as much as we do.

We are currently working on quite a few residential pieces, and some more things for Princeton University, as well as completing a large project for the Westminster School in Connecticut. The showroom is newly "poshed" for the upcoming tourist season. We are looking forward to a busy summer here in the Kennebunks, and lots of sun, sand and surf. Come join us!

Still Strong Amidst Slow-down

The furniture industry is seeing hard times in Maine and elsewhere. Retailers are bracing for even lower sales volume in ‘09 than they saw in ‘08, and manufacturers are cutting costs wherever they can. Many smaller manufacturers, woodworking shops here in Maine and throughout the country, are laying off workers, closing their doors or putting their staffs on furlough until more business gets them up and running again.

The furniture builders in New England are a tight group. We keep in contact with one another directly and we use the same suppliers and shippers, so we know how everyone is making out. It’s pretty tight out there right now. A lot of very talented furniture makers are struggling to stay busy. It’s hard to see. These people are our friends.

Knowing what’s going on in the marketplace, seeing and hearing about it every day, we feel very fortunate that our shop has enough work. We know how lucky we are. Our shop is busy. We have enough work to keep busy right through mid-summer. We attribute this continuing flow of work to two things: a diversified clientele and strong relationships with our customers.

About 3 years ago, we decided to make a concerted effort to strengthen our presence in the non-residential market: libraries, colleges and universities. We had been selling to this market for years, but we really hadn’t put too much effort into growing that part of the business. Our focus was primarily residential furniture and all of our marketing efforts were directed there. The institutional work was coming in, but mostly by word of mouth. We have worked hard in recent years to reach out to this market. We’ve added to our marketing significantly and it’s paying off for us.

Huston & Company is currently building furniture for some heavy-hitting clients, such as Princeton University, UPENN, Harvard Business School and public libraries in New England and even as far as Kansas. Most of these projects were put into motion one, two, even three years ago. We are always looking ahead in this market, because that’s how it moves. Our biggest question now is how this crazy economy will affect our business a year from now, or in two years.

Our residential sales have definitely slowed down. Right now, less than half of the orders we have are residential. Most of them are from existing customers. Many of them are fairly small orders; we’re finding our customers are still ordering, but they’re getting one piece at a time, instead of multiple pieces. They’ve worked with us before, so they know that their money will be well spent. We nurture our relationships with our clients; they often become our friends. We think this is the key to why they come back, even in tough times like these.

We admit we would be struggling now if it weren’t for the increase in the institutional orders in recent years. If we were still focused on residential orders as our primary income, we’d be dog-paddling right now. And who knows, next year or the year after, colleges and universities may not have had time to refill their coffers from this downturn. But by then, maybe the outlook will be better for our residential clients, and that business will pick up again.

In the meantime, we are not planning to decrease our marketing efforts at all. In fact, we may even add to them this year. We don’t think now is the time to ‘hide under the table’. We want to be the first furniture maker people think of when they are feeling better about the economy and the state of things. The recession won’t last forever, and we’ll be here when our clients are ready.

We wish all of our friends, colleagues and competitors a healthy spring and summer, and good growth and success.

Here are a few pictures I took today.

Residential Home-Office desk for a new client. This was built by Charlie. It's gorgeous. We love it and we know our client will too!

These are table bases for the Maine Historical Society. This is part of a larger order. We are excited about this project and to see the new Library at the Historical Society now that the renovation is nearly complete.

High Five and Humbled

We recently delivered an order of custom library furniture to the McPherson Public Library in McPherson, Kansas. The order included study carrels, tables, a reservation station and computer stations. We enjoyed this project right from the beginning; the furniture designs were unique and interesting, the people involved in the project were dedicated to and excited about their project.

Shortly after delivery, we recieved this note, via email, from the project facilitator.

Bill,
The furniture for McPherson Public Library looks FABULOUS! The quality of the construction and the finish was exactly what we expected and infact was better! Dealing with you and your company has been a pleasure and I'd happily be a reference for you and your company anytime.
Additionally the delivery from Sure Express was excellent. Dan and Cory were professional, arrived on time as promised and worked quickly and efficiently! Phil Sher kept me up to date, adjusted delivery as much as he could and had a great attitude.
So many times, getting 'things' done is work, worry and hassle. Customer service is minimal if at all and you spend your money and just feel like you didn't get your money's worth. All aspects of dealing with Huston and Company and Sure Express was pleasurable and "worth it".
Thank you very much!
DAVE

We take great pride in our work, and our service, and one of our favorite parts of this business is the relationship that forms between Huston & Company and our clients. We were so pleased to get this note, and greatful to Dave for taking the time to write.

Delivery services are an important part of any order at Huston & Company. With customers from afar, many times the delivery professionals are the only face our clients actually see throughout an entire project. We need that face to be as professional, courteous, careful, thorough and detail oriented as we are.
SureExpress is located in Portland, Maine. They do a vast majority of our deliveries for us and their service is second to none. Sure Express does all types of delivery and shipping: crated, boxed, expedited, blanket wrapped, fine art and antiques, and of course, fine furniture. You can find them on the web at http://www.sureexpressworldwide.com/.

We wish everyone a nice, long weekend.

SPLASHED ON THE COVER OF WOODSHOP NEWS!

The February issue of Woodshop News arrived in our mailbox today (we know... some of you got it days ago). We are very excited about the feature article on Bill Huston and Huston & Company. The article is great, the photos are great - it's a win-win overall. The article talks mostly about the history of Huston & Company and the evolution of Bill's designs, with a focus on the size of the business and Bill's mission to maintain a small shop and strong customer relationships. If you haven't had a chance to see it, head to the Woodshop News website and order up your copy. We will be ordering either copies of the magazine itself, or reprints of the article to mail to all of our architectural and facilities contacts.

We are very busy in our shop this winter. We've got orders of all sizes through the spring and are ever so grateful to have so much work. We extend a warm thought to all of our woodworking business brothers and sisters this year. It will be a tough one but with some creativity and lots of flexibility, we can all make it work.

Here are a few recent pictures:

Gil St. Bernard School furniture in workshop.

Gil St. Bernard School.

Princeton Univeristy, taken right after delivery.

Mattapan Public Library, MA

Mattapan Public Library, MA

Best wishes to all.

As September Rolls In...

This has been our busiest summer ever at Huston & Company, and the fall looks to be just as busy. The shop has been humming along with incredible efficiency and the work has been beautiful. We have also had a busy summer celebrating our 20th anniversary. In July, we held our 20th Anniversary Tent Sale and were visited by over a hundred people in two weeks. Many lovely pieces of furniture found new homes and we met lots of new friends and customers.

On August 16th, we hosted a casual but elegant gathering for our customers in appreciation of their interest, support and friendship over the years. We all enjoyed a lovely evening with some of Maine's best seafood, Maine brewed beers and crafted cheeses. We were delighted and humbled by the many customers who came that evening, came to Maine even from other states just to visit with us, and to celebrate with us. It is one thing to have customers, another to have customers who return to you, but still another thing altogether to have customers who become true friends over the years. We thank all of you who came to join us, and all of those who sent their warm wishes from afar.

Another milestone...on September 1st, Saer Huston will celebrate his 3rd anniversary with Huston & Company. Saer has spent the past three years becoming a master craftsman, learning the ins and outs of his father's business, meeting customers in the showroom and elsewhere, traveling to installations and trying his hand at furniture design. The Balance Coffee and Console Tables, both of Saer's design, have become very poplular pieces in our collection, and the design of our Duo pieces, with hammered copper, was the result of a collaboration between Bill and Saer.

As fall trickles down from the trees in Maine, we'll be working on projects for the University of New England, McPherson Library, Cobb Library and many interesting residential pieces. Our current lead time is at 12 weeks and we're already taking orders for late December and early January. If you are hoping to give a piece of Huston & Company furniture as a gift for the holidays, please call us very soon!

All our best wishes. Until next time...