Over 17,000 pieces sold. Top 10 U.S. furniture manufacturers by thespruce.com and bobvila.com. Our Story - My Customers Forced Me Into This Career
The Appel Shop was born from a hobby that was started with the same (incorrect) thought of many a naïve DIY-er before me: “I could EASILY build that…and for so much cheaper!” Our first daughter was about to be born and we needed a couple pieces of furn
iture, so I perused Craigslist and soon came home to my very-pregnant-and-not-all-that-enthusiastic-about-my-purchases wife with the “porch woodworker starter pack” and got to work on the tiny porch of our fourth-floor apartment. I built some things on my porch and discovered that I LOVED it and had a knack for it. I began to experiment with colors right away and by the fourth and fifth build I was writing up my own designs/plans rather than using ones I found online. It quickly became a full-blown hobby and I started posting my creations on Facebook. To my surprise, people liked those things and expressed interest in getting their own things…but hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself. I had a college degree and a “real” job. This was just a hobby and I had no aspirations for it to be anything but that. Pretty soon though, the real job came to an end. My wife and I had both started as houseparents for a safe house program for underage girls rescued from s*x trafficking and we eventually took over as directors of the program. It was an experience we’re so glad we had (we’re still on the board of directors for that nonprofit), but we had a baby and it soon became clear to us that the long hours and the amount that we were on call wasn’t conducive for how we were desiring to raise our daughter (we now have four daughters). So, we gave a month’s notice and stepped down. Without a plan, but confident in our decision. That was early 2014. We moved back to my hometown and, as I threw resumes around looking for a new “career” job, I posted on my personal Facebook, “Anyone want me to build them something?” without giving it much thought. Little did I know, I had just started a business and a career with that post. The interest was immediate and from that point on, without diminishing, people haven’t stopped asking me to build them things. I was working full time at it pretty much right away. That’s why I say, “my customers forced me into this career,” because I didn’t even realize this was something I wanted to or COULD do, but the sales just didn’t stop. I’ve been told that this is an amazing way to start a business, but the downside is that no business plan or structures were in place, which made for a messy few years of being constantly behind and overwhelmed. I started locally, building whatever I was asked to build, but I really wanted to build and sell my original designs alone. Etsy seemed like the best option for that, and it indeed was. I was blown away by how quickly I started selling my original pieces once I went on Etsy. I started by renting out a small space in my father-in-law’s countertop shop, but outgrew that within a year, so I moved into a 450 SF garage and outgrew that, then a 1,000 SF shop, then 1,800 SF, then 3,400 SF, then 5,500 SF, and we’re now in a huge 16,000 SF building that I’m hoping will fit us for a while, because I hate shop moves more than I hate spiders or papercuts (meaning I hate them a whole, whole lot). In 2019 we shocked our family, friends, and my three employees when we announced we had decided to move away. We had never intended to stay in my hometown and yet suddenly five years had passed…but our desire to move had never gone away. And the business was continuing to grow and we realized we needed to make a change or stay there forever. There was nothing easy about moving our four daughters away from their grandparents and cousins, but it ended up being the right decision for our family. We ended up in rural north Florida (almost Georgia) in a small town called Monticello where we knew no one. Leaving my employees was one of the hardest decisions for the business, but Monticello, and nearby Tallahassee and Georgia, ended up having some incredible people. I soon hired Brad to help on both the computer and shop side of things and he was able to help get systems in place to get us much more organized (and continues to do so). A little later a local woodworker named George, whose work I had already seen in a local store, was driving by and stopped in because he saw wood through my open shop doors. I’m thankful that I got a sense of how valuable he was and offered him a job before our conversation was over. I was then contacted by Isaac, a finish/trim carpenter from Georgia who had read several things I had written online and decided The Appel Shop was where he wanted to be, regardless of how far he had to drive each day to get there. With a larger shop space and this team in place, we got through the 2019 Christmas rush and got ready for another year, with no global pandemics on our radar whatsoever. THEN, COVID-19. The virus has decimated so many people’s livelihoods and dreams, and taken many, many lives as well. It’s been rough. More than rough. But as much of the country began to work and school from home, they all needed a surface to work on and looked to the internet to purchase it. And as larger retailers closed down or sold out, we were over here in our small town with our already separate and well-ventilated work areas and a team ready and willing to get work done, able to keep production fully going even as the world shut down. So things REALLY exploded for us. Like really, really exploded. Sales more than quadrupled in just two months’ time and stayed there (and are still there). I hired people as fast as I could and am so very thankful that I continued to find (or be found by) really excellent people. With the help of the team we already had and the ones we added to it, we were able to build and ship close to 3,000 desks and tables in 2020. My father-in-law, who rented me shop space and the use of his tools at the very beginning, has since closed his business and moved up here (with my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law) to be my head of production, allowing me to focus on new designs and the growth and flow of the business. We also had to move to a larger shop in the middle of it all and got quite behind (at one point we had over 650 desks/tables on order) and it was all quite stressful, but we handled it. We haven’t been untouched by the pandemic by any means, with plenty of folks having to be out at one time or another because of it, but we have been incredibly fortunate and for that I’m so grateful. We continue to thrive as we build hundreds of quality desks and tables every month right here in Monticello, FL and ship them all over the country. The past seven years that I’ve been doing this have been amazing and incredibly hard too. I’ve consistently worked 60, 70, 80-hour weeks for most of it (thankfully not anymore) and the stress has almost killed me a couple times. BUT, I wouldn’t choose something different if I could go back. It’s been pretty cool. I’m so thankful for everyone who has purchased from me/us. If that’s you and you’re reading this: thank you. Some folks took a chance at the very beginning and I trust those tables are still holding up (and if they aren’t, let me know and I’ll build you a new one). And some just purchased recently (or still have yet to decide) and I hope those tables last you another 50 years. Regardless, I hope it’s a quality piece that is both functional and beautiful, like I designed it to be.
-Tyler Appel
