Treasured Times offering quality handmade furniture

John Hand (far right), Everett Moore (far left) and Hand’s sons Samuel (stand­ing) and Joseph (sit­ting) com­prise the team at Trea­sured Times Wood Works. The busi­ness, which also fea­tures the begin­nings of a coun­try store, offers heir­loom qual­ity, cus­tom hand­crafted hard­wood fur­ni­ture, as well as repro­duc­tions and restora­tions. (Ryan Pev­erly photo)

By Ryan Pev­erly
rpeverly@registerherald.com

Par­don the word play, but John Hand didn’t always make fur­ni­ture by hand.
An aero­space engi­neer for 25 years, Hand left the cor­po­rate world three years ago for a sim­pler, family-oriented life. That meant giv­ing up a good job and good money to be closer to his and his wife Lisa’s fam­i­lies, while rais­ing their own chil­dren in a home that put God and fam­ily before any­thing else.
That was nearly 20 years ago. Now, Hand is ready for his next ven­ture.
Enter Trea­sured Times Wood Works and Coun­try Store, a fam­ily owned and oper­ated busi­ness that makes fur­ni­ture and clocks the old-fashioned way — from scratch. Or, by hand, if you’re into that whole word play thing.
Hand has enlisted the help of his friend, Everett Moore, who has 40 years of furniture-making and wood­work­ing expe­ri­ence, and his two sons, Samuel and Joseph. John was inspired by the wood­work­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing com­mu­nity that is Holmes County — Amish Coun­try, to those of you who have made the nearly 200-mile trek.
“I’ve really stud­ied the busi­nesses in Holmes County the last 5 years to under­stand why they did what they did. They used to be a farm­ing com­mu­nity, but about 25 years ago they evolved into a wood man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness because they couldn’t sup­port their fam­i­lies on the land. There’s over 400 of them in that area,” Hand said.
“So we went up there and got to meet a lot of folks who were kind enough to open their shops to us and show us what they did and answered any ques­tions we had.”
Closer to home, they vis­ited local wood­work­ing oper­a­tions, to get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of wood­shop lay­out, equip­ment, sup­pli­ers, etc., accord­ing to John.
“There are numer­ous local cab­i­net and cab­i­net door wood­shops,” John explained. “But no wood­work­ing shops which con­cen­trated on fur­ni­ture and clock-making.”
Hope and Moore are hop­ing to fill a niche mar­ket long-absent in Pre­ble County and sur­round­ing areas.
Trea­sured Times is located on a 10-acre prop­erty between West Alexan­dria and Gratis. The prop­erty was built in 1819 by Franklin N. Fudge, and local lore says tun­nels from the days of the Under­ground Rail­road run under­neath the prop­erty. Hand’s house sits on one side of the prop­erty, where a coun­try store is in its begin­ning stages, and the wood­work­ing shop is on the other side in an old barn.
That old-time atmos­phere is only part of the allure of Trea­sured Times. The rest of it comes from the crafts­man­ship and inti­mate detail put into its fur­ni­ture — cuphold­ers and mag­a­zine racks in porch swings, tables that extend to what seems like 20 feet, and refur­bished antique chairs that look as if they were just made new.
Hand said the busi­ness idea orig­i­nally came from what he saw as a need for qual­ity fur­ni­ture that could be made bet­ter than some­thing two or three times as expen­sive.
“I think there’s a need in the area, I really do. We go out to stores and see things that come in from off­shore man­u­fac­tur­ers. It may look good, but it’s cheap and will fall apart in time. I thought, can we do bet­ter? And I think we can,” Hand said.
Trea­sured Times offers heir­loom qual­ity, cus­tom hand­crafted hard­wood fur­ni­ture, as well as repro­duc­tions and restora­tions. The store sells hand­crafted fur­ni­ture, clocks, wind chimes and books, among other things. The busi­ness oper­ates under the motto “Qual­ity, Deliv­ery, Trust.”
Trea­sured Times is located at 6417 Enter­prise Road, West Alexan­dria. Hours are by appoint­ment only. Call (937) 787‑9663 to sched­ule an appointment.

Ryan Pev­erly is a staff writer at The Register-Herald in Eaton.

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