THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412020281
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CAROLE O'KEEFFE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
THE WARRENS OF WHALEYVILLE are old hands when it comes to creating the newest look in home furnishings. The old look is the new thing, they say.
Shirley M. and William L. Warren opened the Olde Country Store at 1237 Carolina Road to take advantage of the demand for this kind of decorating, the primitive style characterized by simple lines and a worn appearance.
Bill Warren had been using the site as a manufacturing shop before the couple realized there was enough interest in their goods for a retail showroom.
They opened the store in May, and now they've enlarged it to about 1,800 square feet. They got much exposure during the Peanut Fest in October.
The Warrens - in their ``40s and 50s,'' they say - met in South Carolina while both were working in arts and crafts. She is from that state. He grew up in the Whaleyville section of Suffolk where his father owned the saw mill.
``I have been in some type of lumber industry since high school,'' he said. ``I guess that's where I got the sawdust in my blood.''
The couple make about 85 percent of the furniture and other items they sell in the new store. The rest they buy from wholesalers at national furniture shows.
Bill Warren specializes in shelves, cabinets, bookcases, tables - ``anything in the wood line,'' he said.
Primitive pieces also include corner cabinets, deacons benches and quilt racks. Some of it really is old, but much of what is on the market today is reproduction furniture, finished to look old, Bill Warren said.
``Bill can make anything. Bring him a drawing if you want something made. He'll make it,'' his wife said. He has made a career of woodworking for 16 years.
Shirley Warren worked for a time mass producing sculptures for a resin company, but she disliked making items, designed by others, at such a fast pace.
``I like to design what I feel like designing,'' she said.
She makes objects from clay, like teddy bears, pigs, barrels of apples, angels and the popular snowmen. These sculpted items become magnets or adorn wooden calendars or shopping lists, for example, in place of two-dimensional pictures.
She is also a painter, a job she shares with two part-time employees.
``One way or another, I touch everything that goes through here,'' she said. Both Warrens make large yard art, like three- to four-foot-tall cut and painted wood pumpkins, black cats, angels and snowmen that can be left out for longer than just Thanksgiving in the fall and Christmas in the winter. Some of the figures come with stakes for yard mounting, others sit on porches.
``People like to decorate the outsides of their homes for every season. It's not new, it's just more than it once was,'' Shirley Warren said.
Making the objects is just one part of the job, she said. First they determine what will sell. ``Shirley has an amazing knack for that,'' her husband said.
They have been married for nearly seven years, and before coming to Suffolk in 1989, owned a store near Myrtle Beach, S.C. Most of their business was in the summer. Customers were mainly tourists.
But in the Suffolk location, customers include not only tourists, but locals as well with an interest in primitive pieces that blend well with ever popular antiques.
``We feel we have a year 'round market here,'' Bill Warren said.
The Warrens used to travel to many shows, but an automobile accident put Shirley Warren and her son out of commission for nearly six months. Limited in their ability to travel, the family decided to open a retail outlet not far from their Whaleyville home.
Items for sale include Christmas wreaths, shadow boxes, Virginia and magnet greeting cards. Prices range from as low as 59 cents to several hundred dollars. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Owner Bill Warren stands outside the Olde Country Store on Carolina
Road in Suffolk.
by CNB