By Katie Scarvey
Salisbury Post
Stan Dunham doesn’t mind talking about his early woodworking efforts, which were not particularly auspicious.
“I made some really ugly, bad things,” he says. Like the footstool he describes as “a mushroom on legs.”
Although it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing piece, his wife Ashley had it upholstered and it went in their living room.
One day, as he was sitting with his feet propped on the stool, it “just imploded on itself,” he says, “like somebody set a charge underneath it.” He fell backwards, the pizza he was eating splattering on his shirt.
The days of imploding furniture are over.
Stan has found his niche ó high-end custom cabinetry. He has his own shop, a business partner, 10 employees and a long list of designer kitchens to his credit.
Better Homes and Gardens recently showcased one of his Charlotte projects in a special interest publication called “Beautiful Kitchens.”
Stan’s shop at 801 W. Innes Street is a busy place these days, with the hum of joiners and rip saws and the smell of sawdust in the air.
You might not know there’s a business there, since the only sign says “Dunham Packaging” ó his father’s business that previously occupied the space, originally a Lincoln-Mercury dealership.
Stan doesn’t need a sign ó or any other advertising, for that matter. In five short years, he’s made a serious reputation for designing and building high-end cabinetry, mostly for clients in Charlotte and Charleston, including Erskine Bowles. One of his current projects is in Salisbury ó a kitchen renovation for Luke and Diane Fisher.
Pretty impressive for a guy who for a long time wasn’t sure how to channel his energy and creativity.
After high school, Stan attended East Carolina University for a year and “partied my way right out of there,” he says.
“Flighty,” is the word he uses to describe himself then. “I never stayed anywhere longer than six or eight months,” he says.
In 1990 he moved to Boone. He was living in the mountains, working in a restaurant and considering culinary school. Other than that, he did what he wanted.
Why grow up when you’re having such a good time?
His father felt otherwise.
“You can’t live here snowboarding, kayaking and biking for the rest of your life.” That’s what Stan remembers his father telling him ó an observation followed by an offer to work at his packaging company in Salisbury. When Mike Dunham threw in a Toyota Land Cruiser, Stan was in.
It didn’t take Stan long to realize that neither the work nor Salisbury excited him. He kept his bags packed in his car and travelled to Boone every weekend.
On a whim, around 1995, he enrolled in a woodworking class at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and “really got the bug,” he says.
Eager for a challenge, Stan asked the instructor if he could build something besides drawer boxes. And so he built … a fiddle?
“I’m a big bluegrass fan,” he explains.
“There were a lot of things I didn’t know how to do. But I finished it and took it up to Boone and had a buddy play it.”
He was hooked.
Shortly after he married Ashley in 1996, she and his father gave him an inexpensive table saw and a joiner for Christmas. Woodworking became his obsession.
“I read about woodworking every day,” he says.
He’d learn something through reading and then design and build a piece to put theory into practice.
Before long, he was making heirloom-quality pieces, like a carved walnut cradle for son John Louis, from walnut that came from the farm of Ashley’s grandfather. He made a silver chest for Ashley, featuring delicate ginkgo leaf carvings.
He would find himself looking at a finished piece, saying, “I can’t believe I did that.” Uninterested in his job, he took every chance he had to use the woodworking shop he’d set up at the packaging company.
His father was about ready to retire, Stan says, and since the textile industry had been one of their biggest clients, business wasn’t what it had once been anyway.
Stan took a job selling labels and computer paper for a Hickory business.
The guy known for wearing flip-flops and shorts was miserable in a business suit. He’d go visit his friend, woodworker Dowd Temple, just to keep his sanity. Before long, he began working for Dowd, “an unbelievable woodworker,” Stan says.
He honed his woodworking skills with Dowd for six or eight months and then worked for Goodman Millwork Company for about the same amount of time.
Then came a turning point.
Ashley decided to pursue graduate studies in public health administration at UNC-Charlotte. With people already requesting him to do custom woodworking jobs, Stan felt the time was right for him to strike out on his own.He’s not sure why he and Ashley took the gamble. She was a full-time student, and he’d have to support them with his new venture ó while doing his part with their children, John Louis and Rainey, now 8 and 7.
The stars were properly aligned, it seemed. Doing a kitchen project for his sister Nicky in Concord, Stan met Charlotte designer Emily Bourgeois, who began hiring him for her projects. That was five years ago.
“Ever since then, I haven’t been able to keep up,” he says.
It’s all been a little overwhelming for someone who describes himself as “the artistic ADHD guy.”
He gives a lot of credit to his shop manager David Leslie for getting him through the early chaos. An experienced woodworker, David has been in the business since 1978.
“This business would not be here if not for him,” Stan saysj1. “He’s put his heart and soul into it.”
David would often stay into the night to keep up with the orders. Stan’s hours were also brutal. He’d work all day, come home in the evening to spend time with his family and then go back and work until 1 or 2 in the morning.
He was designing, selling, and working on site, usually in Charlotte, and dealing with maddeningly trivial details to bootó like getting the propane tank refilled. Stretched to his limit and sleep-deprived, his ADHD tendencies were coming out, he says.
“I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing. I thought I was losing my mind.”
Employees were making lots of cabinets, but jobs weren’t getting finished.
After switching to a traditional English bench model for his business, things are now running smoothly. Stan turns his designs over to a cabinetmaker, who takes charge of the project.
Stan recently added a business partner, Matt Krampert, “the numbers man,” who works from his home at Lake Norman.
Besides his design ability, Stan brings emotional intelligence to interactions with clients and employees.
Hang out in his shop for a while and you sense the chemistry among the workers. Clearly, the cabinet-makers and finishers are fond of Stan ó and comfortable enough with him to give him good-natured grief.
One mentions that Stan’s head is occasionally located somewhere other than at the top of his neck ó and says he may be quoted to that effect.
Another employee wears a T-shirt that says, “If idiots grew on trees, this place would be an orchard.”
“It’s just not your typical company,” says Stan, who wears the boss title uncomfortably. “I don’t babysit these guys. They know more than I do.”
Stan has attracted seasoned woodworkers eager to accept challenges.
“The guys we compete against want to build the boxes,” he says. “We sort of thrive on things that are different and difficult.”
Not only do they make cabinetry, they do custom doors, molding, paneling, and furniture. A line of furniture is in the works.
Stan sometimes marvels at his new role ó owner of J.S. Dunham Cabinets, with a payroll to meet.
“I was a hippie living in the mountains, snowboarding every day,” he muses. nnn
Contact Katie Scarvey at 704-797-4270 or kscarvey@salisburypost.com.