Thrifty + Crafty = Furniture Remaking Biz

Mandy Jesse describes herself as a "lumberjack" from eons ago. Her perpetually painted hands can no longer wear rings.

And she loves it.

"This is me," Jesse said with a smile. "Women have lipsticks in their handbags. I've got tape measures."

The small-framed Jesse, 49, drives a cargo van, a pickup truck or a big box truck while scouting unwanted furniture, bric a brac and other random items that others view as garbage.

"I trash pick. Dumpster dive is what I call it," she said. "I see something and I know I can make something into it."

Early beginnings

A native of England, Jesse has been making and re-purposing furniture since she was 7. 

"I'm daddy's little girl. I watched him and followed him," said Jesse from the workshop in her Hatboro store, Primitive Dwelling. "He used to build everything from scratch. I was his helper."

In the decades before shabby chic decor made its way onto HGTV, or primitive furniture's distress marks were recognizable trademarks, Jesse, of Upper Moreland, was already painting and sanding her way to those now-popular furniture re-stylings. 

While in England, her furniture-making took a backseat to her full-time job as a hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon.  

"On the side I did furniture because I loved it," Jesse said. "It was therapy."

She relocated to the states in the late '80s. In the years since she's transformed "my whole house and my neighbors' houses" into re-purposed decor. 

Crafty meets business acumen

More recently, she's taken to making over items for countless customers. In 2011 Jesse took the plunge and turned her furniture-making hobby into a business. She opened her first Primitive Dwelling location in a tiny space on Jacksonville Road in Hatboro.

"I didn't know if people were going to like my junk," she said.

If cramped quarters are any indication, customers love Jesse's "junk." Within six months she outgrew the original space and moved next door into a spot previously housed by a barber shop.

A year later, Jesse's current 700-square-foot space is still too small. 

"I am bursting at the seams," Jesse said. "I go to people's houses to do their kitchen cabinets." 

Jesse, who gets by on two hours of sleep a night and lives on Red Bull energy drinks as she works 80 to 90 hours a week, jokes that she wishes she could be an octopus. The extra arms would help her do much more than she is capable of doing now. 

Helping hands

While she can not sprout extra limbs, Jesse has found helping hands in the way of her assistant, Heather Hamilton, who, since joining her at Primitive Dwelling on March 1, has taken Jesse's post-it notes and backlog of customer requests and plotted a schedule. 

Besides organizing Jesse, Hamilton hand paints signs and incorporates her needlework and furniture reupholstering into Jesse's craft.

"We're like gasoline and matches. We think the same," Hamilton said. "Junk excites us."

Perhaps equally exciting is the prospect of a bigger space. On May 1, Primitive Dwelling will relocate to 5 Williams Lane in Hatboro. The space is roughly three times the store's current size, according to Hamilton. In addition to having more room to browse, Hamilton said the new store, which includes a basement, will incorporate the goods Jesse has had housed in two outside storage units for some time. 

With extra space comes more room to work. Over time, Jesse said she may add another employee, a painter, to do base coats. 

"I want to always finish," Jesse said. "I need a hustler. I need a worker."

Once the new space opens, the thrift-minded Hamilton said she hopes to begin offering various workshops, including crafts and sewing, to teach others how to re-purpose, up-cycle and give their homes and decor a new look.

And like the goods Jesse and Hamilton work to makeover, the new space, too, will have a signature Primitive Dwelling look.

"We are going to revamp that place," Jesse said of the former antiques store. "They're going to know we were there."

For the self-described lumberjack who's made almost a lifetime of building and reworking furniture, the true test of her business is its ability to hold its own financially. Her husband, who drives tractor trailer for a living, has always been the bread winner for their family, Jesse said. 

But, as primitive and shabby chic become more popular, she sees that tide turning. Eventually, Jesse said she hopes to take her four children and three grandchildren to Disney World. 

"It's making its own money," she said of her business. "It's paying its way."