South Plank House..

About Us

Hi, thanks for stopping by! My family calls me Tia and together with my husband, David, we own and operate South Plank House.

South Plank House was born out of necessity. In the summer of 2017 we sold every piece of furniture we owned, and moved from Southwest Florida to start a new adventure in Ringwood New Jersey.

(Our loving and gracious family invited us to stay with them while we scoped out the area for our own place, hence the reason we sold all of our furniture.)

Within a year we found our now-home "up the mountain" in Hewitt New Jersey, however we had no furniture besides a platform bed and a desk.

So I got to work thrifting out deals on Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, and Letgo for used furniture. That began my love of refinishing furniture. I spent all of my free time learning about best practices in furniture finishing. I tried just about every primer and paint on the market. I learned about how different components react with each other, and what was needed to make a finish not only durable, but beautiful.

After furnishing our own home with my refinished finds, I decided I could try my hand at turning my love of refinishing furniture into a little side hustle. And soon that side hustle grew so that my hubby could switch to part time work and work with  me. This added a whole new element to our furniture. Not only could I refinish the pieces, but my super handy husband did repairs, removed tops, and made new tops for tables and dressers.

Our first big score was on a Saturday morning, we traveled to an estate sale in Pine Island New York and landed so much furniture there was barely room for us in the van! The sale was on South Plank Road. I said to the hubs, "What a great name that would be for a business. South Plank House." I was half joking, but I couldn't get the name out of my head. It just made perfect sense. We are from the South....we added planks to the tops of furniture to make farmhouse inspired styles...and it was stuff for your house.  After bouncing around in my head for a few weeks, my husband came home to business cards with the name "South Plank House" and that was it.

We became South Plank House.

After less than a year, I grew tired of searching for furniture and I encouraged my husband to start building furniture. With not an ounce of experience, he agreed to build one table and see how it went. Well, needless to say, it went well! We sold that table within a week, and got requests for more. My husband was able to immediately quit his part-time job and build full time. That's how fast the orders were pouring in! He poured over woodworking videos, learning the best techniques and how to improve his skills, and we learned from our mistakes as well! He's gone from building basic tables from plans with beginner joinery techniques, to designing and building ANYTHING with no plans using time honored, gold standard building techniques! He can just look at something and build it! That's our favorite part of our job, getting an inspiration photo from a client and asking us if we can build it, and being able to say yes, then delivering that piece and hearing the client say, "It's better than I could have imagined!"

And while it's mainly just myself and my husband doing everything from answering your emails, to advertising, to building, finishing and delivering...we partner with my brother-in-law, who is also a master craftsman, during our busy months, our daughter is our social media manager, and we've recently partnered with an interior designer to offer in-house design services and 3D design renders. (Whew, that was one long run-on sentence!)

We are thankful to have not just started a business that allows us to work together as a family with friends and still have time for more important things, but allows us to meet so many wonderful clients who have trusted us with building a piece for their home so they can make memories with their families.  We are truly a customer-focused small business, and proud of the impeccable customer service record we have.

 

Our Mission

Our story starts with our family and ends with yours….

We come from a family of woodworkers. Beginning with our great grandpa down to our dad, they built everything from entire houses to small furniture and everything in between.

But our drive to design stunning dining tables is fueled by more than just four generations of woodworking traditions - as dedicated parents, family is at the heart of why we created this business. 

The details in a dining table matter. They make it personal to your family. Your dining table holds memories. It starts and carries traditions. It’s where you gather for happy occasions, and sometimes sad occasions, it’s where you’ll have noisy game nights, and quiet chats over coffee while the kids are still sleeping. You’ll celebrate there, share tears there, and make hard decisions there. 

Our mission is to provide expertly handcrafted, heirloom quality dining tables to foster communication, connection, and strengthen family bonds.

By honing our construction techniques, ever expanding our design knowledge, and learning from good ol’ experience, we've formed a business based on cherished moments with family that allows us to provide a space families can enjoy for a lifetime!

We are dedicated to crafting tables with both artistic quality and moral integrity, always keeping in mind the families behind each order.

After all, what makes our most cherished possessions precious to us is those little intangible moments in life that happen around them.

We’re honored you chose South Plank House.

From our family to yours,

South Plank House