Granary closes its doors

FINDLAY — After 40 years — including 21 in Findlay — the Granary Gifts and Furniture has closed the doors of its local store. The final day was Sunday. "Many people think of their work as a job … but over the years to my husband and myself, our work was a ministry, many times praying with customers (complete strangers) that somehow felt a peace in our store," said owner Dianne Schafer. Schafer, who has been trying to sell the company for several years, said the current lease is up which is why the Findlay location closed. Meanwhile, Burlwick & Co. will move into the building at 7977 County Road 236. Owners Kelsey and Brad Heitkamp hope to be open by the spring of 2026. "And they are going to do the really dramatic interior design work so I'm excited to see to," Schafer said. The farm store so many people remember was located on the Schafer farm near Mount Cory. "We're actually not going to open up the farm store because I sincerely do want to be a grandma with my six grandchildren. So I want to be able to do that and not have regular store hours," she explained. "However we are still going to do in-home design work for people where we help them pick out paint, furniture and that kind of stuff, just the simple stuff, not go in knocking out walls and all of that." Schafer and her husband, Steve, met and dated when they were both students at Cory-Rawson High School. Schafer graduated in 1969 and her husband in 1970 "Back then, you didn't really go to college. You just got out of school, got married, you got settled down," she said. She said the couple did everything together, including the farming. "I drove tractor for him and each year when we would get done with the harvest, he would buy me a new tool," she said. Schafer's workshop includes a router, drill press and radial arm saw that she uses to make little primitive wood pieces like sofa tables and shelves. "We had a showbox business is how it started," she said. They also had a small store in their basement, and Schafer, who made wooden items and did leatherwork. "I have done about everything but baskets. We did sewing things. I like making things because while we were downsizing the Granary, putting things in the warehouse, it was hard to say no," she said. "Maybe I had a vase that for 10 years I was going to make it into this arrangement. I could see it in my mind and yet I hadn't done it yet and I'm like, I've got to keep that vase." The business grew over the years. One day she and her husband were driving down U.S. 30 after dropping their son off at Red Cross camp in Salem, Ohio. "My husband asked if there was anywhere I wanted to stop," she recalled. "Jokingly I said, 'Sure! If you see Amish furniture for sale, stop.'" Then she took a nap. He later woke her up announcing "We're here!" He found a place offering Amish furniture for sale. "I was half kidding. He was fulfilling my dream, I guess," she said. They bought a bench and jelly cabinet for the basement store, wondering if anyone would buy them. To their surprise, then Arlington Mayor Lynne Orwick bought the first piece of Granary furniture. That was the start of a 40-year span of good times and hard, ups and downs. "But no matter what we did, we knew God was directing our path," she said, referring to Proverbs 16:9. Her husband passed away in 2017. They also have two sons, one of whom passed away, and six grandchildren. The family is very sports oriented, said Schafer. Her son, Andy Schafter, is the football coach at Columbus Grove High School. The original store was the first Amish furniture store in Northwest Ohio, according to Schafer. In 2001, they decided to open a store in the Findlay Village Mall. After being moved from one location to another, there was planty of work needed to prime the slat wall and give it a double coat of paint. "We worked like crazy because we had a deadline. Once we got it all done and we were ready to roll, the mall manager said, 'Oh, by the way, the pretzel stand wants half of your storage,'" she said. Initially hired high school and college students. "It was hard to get people to work on Saturdays and that was out at our farm location," said Schafer. "I like to cook so I would cook a big meal on Saturday. So then the fellows would want to work because they got food." No matter who has been on staff, they've also been a family, she said. Schafer happened to be driving down County Road 236 one day when she found their next location — the former Bowman Implement dealership. "What was really funny was, my son and I both saw it how it was going to be. We didn't see the greasy grimy because it was a tractor implement dealership that had four overhead doors in the back. They had a fire in there, and the front was all pegboard where you could see daylight through the siding. I mean, it was a mess," she laughed. The staff wasn't as excited at the prospect, she said. "They were all like, we're going to move in here? And we were kind of like what's wrong? I didn't realize until we had our grand opening when I actually saw the physical pictures of what it did look like and what it ended up looking like. We always saw it as the end result. We didn't see it in the rough stages," she said. They moved into their new location in 2004. "The farm store has been closed the last three or so years, and we don't plan at this time to open it unless I do some open house things or something like that," she said. The new proprietor that is going to take over the Granary is Burlwick & Co. They all spoke about a year ago, and Schafer hoped they would buy the company. "I just wanted to sell it, and it just wasn't good timing at that time but now it is," she said. Schafer said she will miss the friends she's made over the past 40 years, the customers, employees and the Amish who have built furniture for them. "I realized during the sale we're only stopping that portion of the Granary," she said. "We can continue to be the Granary, do the things that we want to do, serve through the Granary and keep our relationship with the Amish. So that's been a real plus to know that that can stay in place." Anything left after the sale will be given to a thrift store in Lima that provides food for people, she noted.