Former feed mill transformed into furniture paradise
By Mallory Schlabach
For Leon Mast, it's more than a business - it's a place where he's worked all his adult years and a place where he's met friends. He's seen it grow, and grow, and grow, expanding the store three times into a place he now calls his own.
For 22 years, Mast, owner of Ole Mill Furniture, has worked and helped his family build the store into a business that prides itself on selling high quality furniture. Gaining a large base of customers, from as far as New Zealand and as close as Charm, where it's located, the store continues to offer new furniture designs and quick turnarounds, allowing customers to take home what they purchase that day.
The 7,000-square-foot store houses several hundred pieces, featuring hardwood bedroom, dining room, and home office furniture, as well as accessories, including lamps, candles, pictures, floral arrangements, and P. Graham Dunn woodwork.
One would never guess the three-story furniture store set in downtown Charm was once a feed mill, renovated by Mast and his family. Mast said Ole Mill Furniture first began 22 years ago when his father, Abe Mast, began gathering furniture and steadily building up a collection of chairs and tables.
"Dad used to have auctions here at the mill, collecting tables and chairs over the years that got us going," Mast said. "That just got us thinking about making a store, and then soon we were able to add local-made stuff to what we offer."
Mast said today most customers wouldn't know what the store used to be.
"We tore down most of the original mill, but you can still see some of the original beams throughout the store," he said.
Leon Mast has always worked at the store, eventually buying the family-owned business from his dad and sister three years ago.
Regardless of who has owned the store, Mast said they always try to have the best quality of products around and good service.
"Sure, it's nice to make some money, but we're here to make friends and really we just want to have the best products available," he said.
One way they do that is by designing many of their own products, which is Mast's favorite part of his job.
"We do design some of the products ourselves and we're able to give a different look to it. We design anything, from mission style to traditional, but we always stay with the hardwoods," he said. "I enjoy coming up with new things for the store. You just have to take that chance that people will like it. Sometimes my ideas flop, but usually they work out in the end."
Mast said none of the furniture is built on-site, instead being built mostly by local builders, and some coming from leading manufacturers, especially his sofas and recliners.
He said while the store does sell some custom-made furniture, mostly they focus on keeping popular styles in stock so customers can walk out with furniture in hand.
"We try to keep a lot of pieces available in the store so there is a quick turnaround," he said. "We want people to be able to come in and take their furniture home with them if we can."
Mast said bedroom furniture sells the best for him - a trend that's stuck for more than a decade.
It's all about how a customer will visualize the furniture in their own home, he said.
"I'm not good at high pressure sales," he said. "I just want people to be able to see how it might look. I love decorating and arranging the furniture in room settings. We don't want our furniture to be stuffed back to back in a room, like you'd find at most other stores."
He said one of his rooms is quite popular, especially with men.
"I've got a room right now that has deer, moose and bear lamps, and couches like they sell at Cabela's, giving the room a lodge look. It's just a real manly room you can relax in," he said.
While Mast said the future looks bright for Ole Mill Furniture, he said he doesn't foresee the store growing larger in the future - as it's already been added on to three times since it opened.
But it won't stop them from adding new collections of furniture, whether it's new bedroom and office pieces, or lawn furniture, which he's adding this spring after not offering it for more than 15 years.
This new lawn collection will focus more on vinyl and polywood furniture instead of hardwood furniture.
"We like where we're at right now. We're going to keep up with the new trends in furniture and offer the traditional pieces too. We always just want to sell more furniture than we did the last year, but who doesn't want to do that?"
The store is located on State Route 557 in Charm, and is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, from 9 a.m. to noon, and Friday, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. It is closed Sundays. For more information, visit the Web site at www.olemillfurniture.com.
