Custom woodworking and furniture business coming to downtown Rockford
By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A custom woodworking and furniture business is preparing to open its first retail shop at the former Runner’s Image in downtown.
KJ Hardwood Lumber, a family-owned business run from a farmstead in Hampshire, plans to open at 219 E. State St. in mid-March. The nearly 3-year-old business features hand-crafted dining tables, benches, wall art, coffee tables and other hardwood custom furniture.
“I just try to find the beautiful aspects in the piece and then accentuate that into whatever it could be,” said Jonathon Hunecke, who owns the business with his wife, Kelly, an elementary school teacher. “I’m just trying to preserve the more natural look of a slab … If the piece has a cool figure or grain patter to it, I’d much rather incorporate that instead of cutting it up into a bunch of little pieces.”
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The downtown shop will also offer select hardwoods for sale for hobbyist woodworkers as well as a range of products such as finishes and glues.
The couple has run a 4,000-square-foot shop from their farm on Godfrey Road, where they also offer saw milling and kiln-dried hardwood lumber sales. This is their second location and first retail showroom. It will initially operate on Fridays and Saturdays and by appointment.
“We hope to hire some staff and expand the hours, but just to get going we’ll start with those two days,” Hunecke said.
Hunecke said he has always enjoyed the community around woodworking, with people sharing their designs and ideas with one another. He hopes to bring that to Rockford, and will offer some consignment sales space for other woodworkers.
“A couple of the stores out this way closed down, and I noticed in Rockford there wasn’t really a store like that,” Hunecke said. “We’re hoping to develop a small community of the local people, the hobbyists who do similar stuff to what we do.”
Hunecke, who has been woodworking for 15 years, found the downtown space through a family connection. He said his aunt and uncle are upstairs tenants of Runner’s Image owners Steve Jaycox and Lisa Doll, and when he learned late last year the shoe retailer would close he jumped at the opportunity to fill the storefront. Runner’s Image announced its closure in December after nearly 42 years in business.
“I’ve seen a lot of the newer stuff come into that couple of blocks right there, and it’s gotten a whole lot nicer than it used to be,” he said. “There’s a good community of small businesses right there and we hope to be the same.”
Follow | KJ Hardwood Lumber
On the web: kjhardwoods.com
Location: 219 E. State St., Rockford
Current office: 47W408 Godfrey Road, Hampshire
Facebook: Go HERE
Instagram: @kj_hardwoodlumber
Tik Tok: @kj_hardwoodlumber
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas
