Firm targets church niche with furniture (11/22/06)

He should be retired now and taking life a little easier.

Instead, Larry Peterson, along with a neighbor has taken on a new challenge.

Through a newly created business, Peterson and Dave Haun are offering custom crafted church furniture pieces from their two-man production facility near Portland.

BCF (Brookview Church Furniture) Woodworking LLC, named for Brooks Creek, which flows near Peterson's farm, has been making church pews, pulpits, communion tables, lecterns, offering boxes, pastor's chairs, and other church furniture pieces since 2003.

For most of his life, Peterson, in addition to farming his Knox Township farm, was a sales representative, first for 30-years with a firm in Michigan that produced grain vacuums, and the latest for a company in Pulaski, Va., that built and sold church furniture. Through his latest sales position he saw what customers had in mind when looking for new pieces to fill their sanctuaries and felt he and Haun could offer customers those same specially made items.

Haun has worked in residential construction for many years, and - considered a master wood crafter - had completed much of the wood trim for Faith Evangelical Church, where Peterson and his wife, Nancy, attend.

"He's meticulous in what he does," Peterson said of Haun's work.

BCF first opened in Peterson's garage and for the first year made pieces such as small offering boxes. But customers were seeing the work that was being turned out and orders increased, soon to bigger pieces.

Peterson and Haun decided to enlarge the business and bigger pieces of equipment were purchased. As business began to expand and the size of the requested pieces, as well as orders, increased as well, it soon became obvious the business was outgrowing the garage.

The two decided Peterson would take care of sales and Haun would offer design and finish work.

"The Building" reads the sign on the spacious white pole barn on county road 100 North, west of the Portland Municipal Airport, that previously was home to Jay Home Builders modular home repair business. But once inside, a visitor will find dozens of large and small computerized lathes and tools for this one-man crafting operation.

Opening the door to an oversized computer base, Peterson reveals a maze of computer wires, all keyed to operate the precision equipment that now allows Haun to do scroll writing, routing, and shaping. A molding machine allows for wide moldings and trims.

The business has turned out dozens of pieces now. The biggest job thus far has been designing and making all new pews as well as chancel furniture for Westchester United Methodist Church's new sanctuary which was dedicated in September 2005. Peterson said BCF turned out 400 linear feet of pews for that project.

"It's wonderful," pastor Darrell Borders said of BCF's work. "He (Peterson) guided us through the whole process and gave us all kinds of choices."

Other work in the past year has been smaller jobs for churches in Portland, Selma, Kokomo, Warren, Petroleum, New Castle, and Middletown.

In addition to church furniture, BCF has made window shelves, cabinets, a 4-foot-by-10-foot conference table for a local businesses, and reupholstered pews for a church that suffered through a fire.

"Right now we have no projects underway. Dave said if I didn't get to work he'd have to fire me," Peterson joked.

But that is expected to change as he is currently bidding on work in Goshen, Marion, and Mt. Clemens, Mich., as well as Kokomo.

When a bid is secured, Peterson explained choices of wood as well as design and upholstery colors are offered to the purchaser.

Construction of pews include tongue-and-grooved seats of hard poplar wood and ends made from the customers' choice of cherry, maple, walnut, or hickory wood.

He regularly makes trips to northern Indiana to bring back a flat-bed truck loaded with wood for the duo's next task.

While the frame for the furniture is designed and put together at the construction site, Peterson hires professionals to come from West Virginia to undertake the upholstering task.

Peterson estimated it takes BCF one-and-one-half to two hours to complete a linear foot of construction.

"We're custom builders," Peterson said of the business. "We build it the way they want it," he said remembering a custom-built pulpit for a minister in Kokomo. The pulpit was designed to fit the pastor's 6-foot-9-inch frame, Peterson said, extending his arms to demonstrate the width.

"We intend to fulfill our commitment by manufacturing custom made products of the highest quality at the fairest prices through efficiency, organization and innovation ...," reads the growing company's motto.

"We're not the biggest, but we want to be the best," Peterson said.[[In-content Ad]]