The Pro File … featuring Steve Staples - March 2004
by Dick Sherman

PLAINVILLE - It’s really a matter of perception : where you or I might see a time-ravaged barn door, Steve Staples sees an interesting and ultimately valuable table top.

That’s because Steve and his colleagues at Staples Cabinet Makers make it their business to reclaim antique lumber and various “architectural fragments” and convert them into tables, cupboards, kitchen islands, and various other one-of-a-kind creations.

Working today out of a cavernous workshop and company store at 23 West Bacon Street – the former site of the Whiting & Davis Company – the veteran artisan has been restoring antiques for the past 30 years.

Staples, who is cheerful, articulate, and enthusiastic about his work, combs the New England countryside for his stock in trade, hauling in “a couple of thousand feet” of lumber per month. Shelling out as much as $10 per board foot, Staples often pays more for antique pine than for new cherry wood.

A typical source for useable material was a circa 1710 house in Attleboro, deemed by the Attleboro Historical Society to be too damaged to salvage.  Staples stepped in and rescued the wood, thereby assuring its second life in the form of furniture to be treasured by discriminating new owners.

While much of the wood is just plain old and not particularly appealing to the casual passerby, some comes to the Staples shop with an intriguing provenance.  A case in point is a table crafted from wood taken from Lizzie Borden’s aunt’s house in Weston.

Salvaging the wood can be a tricky proposition, Staples said, pointing out that he frequently has to pay workers to dismantle a barn or house or reclaim robust beams.

 “It can be very dangerous work,” Staples said.

How does he find all this appealing old lumber?  One source is his web site,

www.StaplesCabinetMakers.com.

“The web site has been valuable,” Staples said. “A lot of the old stuff actually finds us.”

Staples’ wife, companion, and chief sales person is his childhood sweetheart, Chris. The two met in high school English class at age 15 and were married at 20. They’re now the parents of 25-year-old Todd, a Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate; and Haley, 21, a Bridgewater State College student now studying on a fellowship at the University of Toronto.

Steve Staples fell in love with woodworking while serving, of all things, as a merchant seaman following his graduation from the Calhoun Marine Engineering School in Baltimore.

He spent two years before the mast, to borrow a phrase from the old seafaring yarn, and had circled the world twice by the time he was 20.

“At one point,” he said, “I was at sea for 38 days without seeing land. I had to do something.  I had been doing a lot of repair work on ships, so I was familiar with machine shops.  So I would take exotic wood and make shelves and the like for my room.”

Once ashore, he decided to exploit his woodworking proclivities. He opened for business in a converted Jenny gas station on Route 140 in Norton, engaging in architectural millwork.

     “We built a lot of molding and windows,” he recalled, adding that some of his work remains visible today at Boston’s North Station and Boston University.

In the early Nineties, Staple said, companies began to do their millwork in house, a trend that sharply diminished his customer base.

“I didn’t see it coming,” he conceded. “I was flopping around like a flounder in the sun.” 

So he dissolved the business and engaged in other ventures for several years, meanwhile handling restoration worked for a few select customers. He arranged for quarters in the Whiting & Davis building seven years ago, starting  the business in 500 square feet of space.  Staples Cabinet Makers now occupies 14,000 square feet and employs four craftsmen besides Staples and his wife. (Steve’s mother, Jean, helps out here and there, and is considered a valued if informal member of the team.)

“I’m stuck in the finishing department these days,” Staples smiled. “I do the creative thinking.”

Since the company opened its showroom nearly four years ago, business has doubled each year. Staples has shipped creations to points as far distant as San Diego, Oregon, and Wyoming.  A customer in Florida recently acquired a 10-foot table.

Staples products aren’t cheap. An eight-foot white pine table fashioned from a floor removed from a circa 1750 house sold for $2,100.  Staples points lovingly to the original mustard-hued paint that still glows from the old/new tabletop.

 “It’s all about texture,” the amiable craftsman declared. “You want to reach out and touch it.”