"This is What I've Been Looking For"
Founded in 1974 and situated in beautiful rural Pennsylvania, we specialize in restoring heirlooms and antiques in any state of neglect, disrepair or otherwise.
Elijah’s early woodworking experience spanned the globe, from Djakarta, Indonesia, to the Washington, D. C. area. In Djakarta at age seventeen, he demonstrated the Delta wood lathe for the 1962 U. S. trade fair.
The next decade was spent trying to fit into the blue collar, college, then aerospace industry molds. Following a stint in the peace movement, he began a serious search to find a better way to make a living.
A break came in the summer of ’71, with employment at a piano restoration shop. There he learned the art of piano refinishing – and caught a glimpse into the future. Out of the noise, dust and fumes where he worked – through a doorway – Elijah saw an old German cabinetmaker working at his bench. Later, when he saw a damaged carving the cabinetmaker had restored, he knew, “This is what I’ve been looking for.”
An apprenticeship opened in one of the preeminent cabinet shops in the Washington, D.C. area. Elijah jumped at it. Soon it became apparent that he had a gift for the work. Within six months, he was given his own bench.
Experience there included restoring antique furniture belonging to the British Embassy, work approved by the Cabinetmaker to the Queen. Increasingly, Elijah was entrusted with the more difficult jobs, and tasks requiring the best workmanship.
“I knew I taught you good, but I didn’t know I taught you that good.”
Eventually, when he was asked by the owner to establish a satellite cabinet shop, Elijah found a promising abandoned building in (then rural) Germantown, Maryland. He restored the building, and outfitted it as a restoration cabinet shop.
In the spring of 1974, it became an independent shop. A high point occurred when the master cabinetmaker Elijah apprenticed under paid the fledgling shop a visit. Inspecting his work, the master said, “I knew I taught you good, but I didn’t know I taught you that good.”
During the 1976 Bicentennial, Elijah presented “The Colonial Cabinetmaker’s Tools, Craft, and Trade” at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland. He was glad to report that, “It’s still possible, today, to work with your hands, mind, and heart.”
Ever since – over thirty years now – Elijah has improved and expanded his skills and areas of expertise, all the while endeavoring to live up to the high standards he set out with.