Conversation Transcription:
Speaker 1 (01:10): Today we’re talking with Sandy, who is from Sandy Sandy’s custom workroom. Sandy’s custom workroom. That’s what I thought. I just want to be sure she does upholstery of all sorts, and we’re going to chat about all things upholstery, so let’s get started.
Speaker 2: Well, and I don’t know if you even know this, we also do all window treatments. Yeah, you do make drapery and added that about 12 years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, so first question, who are you and what’s your story?
Speaker 2 (01:43): Okay. Well, Sandy Muhle is my name. I am from Wisconsin, and that’s where it started. After graduation, I went to design school and part of the design class was doing an upholstery project. And after going through the class, I thought, how am I going to work with designers because I am a very hands-on person. I’m going to want to do this, and I’m going to want to make the pillows and I’m going to want to so I ended up, not really at that time, going into the design field.
I went to work for an all German family in Milwaukee and worked for them for 10 years, primarily sewing and stuffing cushions and helping the guys pull buttons through. But I was like a sponge. I just watched what everybody was doing, and after leaving there, I actually moved to Arizona where I worked at an airline in there in their hangar making cargo nets, cutting carpet for the airplane seat covers, and did that for about five years.
Then ended up from Phoenix to South Dakota and opened up, moved up here to Dell Rapids and started a little shop where I consigned furniture and household things and had a room in the back that I did my upholstery, and that’s kind of where on my own started and did that for about four years, and then ended up going to work for Traditions, which was a high-end furniture store here in Sioux Falls. Loved working there as a designer, but every weekend, Sandy, can you upholster these dining room chairs? Sandy, can you do this, Sandy, can you do that? And I finally thought, okay, I need to go back out on my own.
So for several years, probably almost eight to 10 years, I was a one man show, doing all of the things, all the upholstery, stripping it, upholstering it, and it got to the point I made a change in where I lived at first. I started out in my basement and then moved out to an acreage just north of town, and ended up working out of a two car garage that was my shop, but it got so busy, and so I was moving drape, and I had started doing drapery also. I was moving stuff from one table so I could use my sewing machine and then moving it back onto a table so I could do something else. And I thought, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (04:42): Both garage stalls was your work room?
Speaker 2 (04:45): Yeah, it was a two car garage, and it was a freestanding two car aside from our house. So I used the whole thing, and it was just me, but it was like, okay, I’m way too busy. And at that time, because I was out of town, I felt like I had to pick up and deliver and brought things in to traditions a lot, and then half my day was wasted. And so I ended up calling someone that I had known from traditions that had moved back to Colorado and said, please come work with me. I have so much work I can’t keep up. And I rented. That’s when I moved into town and got a commercial spot in 2011 and had this business partner for almost two years. And then we parted ways, and again, I was on my own now in a big commercial spot, which was 50 by 50, so it was sizable. And I hired a gal every once in a while to do drapery while I was doing upholstery.
And about six years ago, I heard of a guy that had worked in a furniture warehouse and doing repairs on furniture. So if a furniture came in damaged, they’d send him a cut and sewn arm then. So he worked there full time for 10 hour days and came and apprenticed with me every Friday, and we would literally, okay, I pull it, okay, this is where it’s got to be. We worked on a piece together for almost three years, and so then he ended up coming to work for me. I mean, that was the goal. And so he’s been with me for at least three years now, and about two years ago, another gal that came from that same furniture company just by chance had been working in their drapery department, and she came over and asked if we were looking for anybody.
And so she now is in charge of the drapery area and fills in for me a lot. When I’m gone now, I’m getting ready to kind of semi-retired. Exciting. She does the clerical stuff too, as well as keeping up with drapery, and Zach is doing all of the upholstery now. I mean, when someone says, oh, you do such a good job, it’s like, okay, it’s not me anymore. It’s Zach.
Then this last year, we hired two gentlemen that one, both as outside contractors, but one I pay by the job and one I pay a salary, but he’s not an employee. I guess I had given Courtney and Zach both 10% of the business. So they’re basically, they’re my partners now. I wanted them to have an interest in the company also. So now we keep up. I mean, we were getting eight months out with our upholstery until this probably six, eight months, nine months ago when I started bringing on these other guys that helped us keep up, and the one that has an automotive upholstery shop In Mexico. So I didn’t have to teach him anything. He just jumped right in. He knows the ropes.
So that helped us get caught up. So that’s basically, now I’m looking at semi retiring and I go for a week to 10 days at a time, and they carry on, and that was my goal. It took me a long time to find the right people, but I thought I moved to South Dakota in 94, and I did not want to sell off my business in the parking lot. So I thought, there’s not enough people doing this. No, there is not. I wanted No, and the ones that were doing it, that were in this area, three retired last year in 2022. So yeah, it’s not something that’s taught. I mean, sewing isn’t even taught in schools anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:14): Well, and for Zach to apprentice for three years, there’s not a lot of people that are willing to put that time in to apprentice to, because you’re probably not going to even in three years, see all of the things come through the shop.
Speaker 2 (09:43): But he has a really good understanding of all of the different applications and the different things that if something odd comes in, he’d be able to figure it out, get between the two of us, and then we collaborate a lot. And actually, I always say, you’re never in it too long that you’re not always learning something from whoever I have gotten to work. I’m always learning something from them, a shortcut how to do something. And Giovanni has been a good asset to us because he approaches things more from an automotive standpoint, and so he shows us a different way to do things. And so he was just this last week teaching Zach a different way to hand tie spring. So yeah, we’re always learning more.
Speaker 1 (10:24): And well, everybody should be learning at least one thing every day.
Speaker 2 (10:27): Yeah. Yeah. It’s been fun. And now we just are growing very quickly and kind of spreading out what we do. And Courtney set up a beautiful website for us, so I think that the word mean we hear all the time. I never knew you were here. And I think, my gosh, I’ve been here for 30 years.
Speaker 1 (10:56): Have you always been in the same location?
Speaker 2 (10:58): No, just since 2011 when I got the commercial space.
Speaker 1 (11:02): But that commercial space has always been, it’s that one.
Speaker 2 (11:04): Yep. Just the one spot. And I love it because it’s so accessible for everybody.
Speaker 1 (11:11): That’s a great spot Speaker 2 (11:13): And easy to tell people directions on how to get there.
Speaker 1 (11:17): Yeah. Okay. So what exciting things are you working on?
Speaker 2 (11:21): Well, we have done a couple commercial jobs, as you know, and we are branching out into, we have started doing some furniture, more commercial for Avera and for Touchmark and for, oh gosh, what’s the one on, I should know this, another retirement center, and if I think of it, I should say their name. So we’re getting kind of repetition things also, which has been awesome for Carlos, who we have just, and he’s learning, so it’s things that he can tackle now by himself. We have been asked to be on a national TV show.
Speaker 1 (12:24): That’s exciting.
Speaker 2 (12:25): Which I am sworn to secrecy, so I cannot say who it is yet. But we’ll be airing on tv. We’re hoping sometime in January or February.
Speaker 1 (12:36): Nice. And so it’ll be doing upholstery rework.
Speaker 2 (12:40): It’s an upholstery job. It’s a design show. So they are asked us to do an upholstery project, and now that we’ve done that with them, they want to come back and film again with us on another project and another project. That’s exciting. So that has been very exciting for us.
Speaker 1 (13:01): Exciting. Okay. What is your biggest goal right now?
Speaker 2 (13:08): My personally is to transition from owner operator to retired operator. My husband travels for his work and he would love for me to travel more with him.
Speaker 1 (13:25): That would be fun.
Speaker 2 (13:26): So I am looking to kind of slowly go into going a week at a time, maybe once a month, to eventually going, we have a place down in Arizona, and I would love to be able to go three months out of the year in the winter, obviously, because it’s so wonderful, so wonderful here to stay here. So that’s my goal. I keep asking what I call the kids, what do you want to do? Do you want to grow? And so helping them grow the business, which is really what’s happening now because Yep, they want to grow. I said, you can either just maintain and draw a living off of it or we can keep expanding. So we keep kind of breaking out into area. We didn’t used to do any commercial because we were just so overwhelmed with residential. And when Covid hit, we got busier than ever. People are at home looking & realizing their furniture, and having time to decide what to do. We were busy. We never missed a day of work. So it’s even kind of hard for me to fathom that there was a covid.
Speaker 1 (14:46): Yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:47): The world shut down for two years. Because we did not. And because we’re a smaller shop, we weren’t worried about if someone’s sick, they stayed home. So growing the business for them is really my goal and has been for a long time. I think I probably start thinking about when I was looking for them, and both of them were just godsend to me because I didn’t advertise for anybody. Just somebody knew somebody that showing that up, and I said, send them over if they want. I didn’t want to take anybody or steal anybody from anybody. So they pursued me. And it just was, both of them are just awesome fits.
Speaker 1 (15:38): Well, I think Zach was fairly new when I had you do that chair in Ottoman a couple of years ago
Speaker 2 (15:43): Probably.
Speaker 1 (15:44): And at the time you’re like, he’s so amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:50): He is. I, he is also very meticulous. Our matching our rebuilding of furniture. When we get into it, we strip it down to the frame. A lot of times padding stays on, especially on new pieces. We don’t go down to just the wood, but we’re very meticulous as to what goes out. And if it isn’t right, we’ve ripped apart furniture. A weird thing happened to us just a couple months ago. We had a chair done, it turned out awesome. She comes and looks at it and says, it’s not the right colorway. It was the right fabric, but the company sent us the wrong colorway, so it had the right name of the fabric, but not the right color. So we stripped it down and redid it for her. So it wasn’t her fault. And that was a first. Those things happen. That was a first. Yeah, that was a first. But we’ve taken apart things that I have not liked how they look, and Zach is as critical as I am and redid ’em if we don’t like them.
Speaker 1 (17:05): Quality pieces.
Speaker 2 (17:07): Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:08): Okay. So as far as upholstery goes, what do you feel is most misunderstood about upholstery?
Speaker 2 (17:15): Well, I think people still think it’s a cost effective way to go. And when I started in the late seventies, it was it now it is someone that wants a custom piece, someone that wants to save a piece of furniture that’s been in their family for years. Someone that cannot find the scale of furniture because it’s gotten so big that their feet don’t touch the ground. And I’ve always loved this chair. I’ve always loved this sofa. I want to keep it, the way it sits is great. And if you’re comparing apples to apples and it’s a good quality piece of furniture, it’s worth redoing. I think a lot of people are shocked, even when we do bar stools, that what it costs. And it’s not like it’s that expensive, but they go out to get compared to see if it’s something, if they should just buy new. And they’re shocked at what furniture prices are these days, and the quality isn’t the same unless you’re paying high-end prices. So I think when I came to South Dakota, probably I was extremely reasonable in price, and I think I catered more to the people that were looking for more of an economical way to go. Now I realize our talent, when I left traditions and all the designers there went independent. I mean, that was everything that I’ve done along the way has led me to where I am now, because working there got me in contact with high-end designers and high-end clients. So it was a good step, a necessary step along my way. I forgot what the original question even was…
Speaker 1 (19:20): How your upholstery is misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (19:22): Well, so it’s someone that wants something custom done, it’s someone coming to us because we will build ottomans and headboards from scratch, or the designers come to us. This is one of my favorite things to do, is they come to us with an idea and we figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 1 (19:44): I love that.
Speaker 2 (19:46): And that’s my goal. I mean, that’s really what I like to do. I have upholstery forums online that I, and there always bashing the designers and they don’t like working with the designers. And to me, that is what I love to do because the creative process, yes, they’re creating something. I don’t always understand what it is they’re doing when we’re putting something together, but in the end, it’s like, okay, I can’t see that. So I enjoy the designers. I think that’s what’s most misunderstood. Or the fact that someone thinks it’s so easy, well, I could cover those dining room chairs myself. No, don’t do it. Yeah. It’s like, okay, go ahead and try. I mean, I’m good for you. I’ve had somebody come in and wanted to do her own chairs and she picked my brain and she’d come in and, okay, I’m this far now, and I like paying it forward. Someone wants to try it on their own. Wonderful. But I think you’ll find out you’re, by the time you’re done stripping the piece of furniture, you don’t want anything to do with it.
Speaker 1 (21:09): It’s hard depending on the piece. It can be very meticulous and very detailed and very intricate and very much a challenge.
Speaker 2 (21:20): Which is just pulling the fabric the right way on a dining room chair seat. It takes time to learn that. And I mean, I see even on some of these, I’m going to pick on HGTV shows and they have an upholster do something, or they’re doing an upholstery project on that flipper. I think, oh my gosh, that’s horrible. And this is on tv, but people think it’s easy. And so that’s probably a big misconception of upholstery.
Speaker 1 (21:54): I would have to agree. It’s not that easy. Yeah. Okay. So what’s one of your proudest moments?
Speaker 2 (22:11): Having my father come work for me. I grew up in Milwaukee, three, two sisters, three girls, and I very much became my father’s son. What he would’ve taught his son is what I got to learn. So that’s what made me the hands-on person that didn’t want to be a designer now wanted to actually do it. He was in the elevator trade and he always said, Sandy, you would make a great mechanic. I had the mind and the forethought, okay, what’s the next step? Having something ready for him when we do chores at home. And in, oh gosh, I have to think what year it was, 2019, I believe.
I ended up having my mom and dad come live in South Dakota by me, and dad came to work for me. And anytime they came to visit before he’d like, what you have for me to strip? And he would, it’s a work trip for him. He wanted to do something and he would always strip the furniture for me, and I love that. I never went to work for him. See, I’ll get emotional. He just passed away this May, so we’ve lost him. But he would come in two or three times a week, and we made a little desk for him. And I had a work t-shirt made for him that said, Irv Sandy’s custom workroom, head stripper. And he would get so much mileage out of that head stripper.
They were at Touchmark eventually, and people would look shocked. And then he, yeah, he’s a head stripper. But it was fun to have him come and spend time with me instead. So that, I think, I mean, getting a commercial space, I knew I had, I don’t know, not made it because I knew I was busy. I was good. I got repeat clients. And then being on this TV show has been another proud moment for me.
Speaker 1 (24:48): That’s quite an accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (24:50): We’ll see how much we actually are in the show. I’ll be watching for you. I’m saying we know her and actually is probably more Zach than me because, well, I know him too. He was doing the upholstery project. So yeah, finding the right people and just knowing I have prayers have been answered and I found who I was supposed to find. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (25:17): I think that’s a big, getting the right people in the right seat of the bus is huge in any industry.
Speaker 2 (25:25): Especially because I was always a person and with my son growing up, I’ll do it. I can do it faster, I can do it better. And so letting go and letting them have control. I mean, I leave for this. Last time I left for a week. I think I called in one time because I had a question, but I’m not checking on them. I know they’re doing fine. I know they’re carrying on, and that’s an exciting, letting go was a big thing for me.
Speaker 1 (25:59): Yeah. Well, I feel like that’s how a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs are is it’s very, it’s your baby, it’s your thing. And then to pass the torch,
Speaker 2 (26:11): Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:14): Okay. So why are you passionate about what you do?
Speaker 4 (26:21): Well, I think it solves several things in me. The need to recreate something, to save something. My design skills, even though I’m on the upholstery side of it, I still use those mean, especially because we have a fabric showroom and people come in and are looking for help too, and they walk in and with hundreds of books, it can be overwhelming. So it covers a lot of my interests. When I had my store in Dell Rapids, people would come in just to visit.
When I got rid of that store, there was a year that I didn’t, I was just doing some upholstery work and I said, I miss my people. I miss talking to customers. So that’s when I went to work for a tradition. So that fed that part for me. We have a lot of traffic through our shop, so we still are. And now that I’ve got four other people there to talk to too, but I’ve been in this area long enough that I am doing a lot of repeat from people, my designers that we constantly are working for. So that need to be around people too, is satisfied. I I used to do it a lot more, take pictures of things when they come in and pictures when it goes out and do before and afters. And now that I’m not doing as much of the upholstery work, I’m more at the desk. I don’t get as many of those pictures taken.
Speaker 1: Do you miss doing the upholstery?
Speaker 2 (28:41): No, because I have, in fact, I’m going to be doing carpal tunnel. I’ve got carpal tunnel tunnel surgery hopefully in the next week. No, and I am so confident in Zach that I love him doing it. There are projects that we’ve worked on together or that I’m cutting and sewing it for him. A lot of the time I’m cutting and sewing it for him, or he’s cutting it, I’m sewing it and he’s upholstering it. So I still have my hand in it. This morning when Courtney’s doing things, I still sew up most of the pillows and cushions. So I’m still doing it, but I’m not doing the physical hard on your wrist things. After 45, I guess it’s almost going, I started this in 1976, so it’s almost 50 years. I used to say it’s about 45 years, or it’s just shy of 45 years. Yesterday I said to Courtney, I have to switch that. It’s getting closer to 50 years
Speaker 1 (29:47): Now. That’s amazing
Speaker 2 (29:49): I guess it meets all of my talents that I have in a lot of different areas.
Sandy can be found at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/upholsterydraperyandbedding
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