Buffets in a normal setting offer a large variety of food to choose from, something for every palate. At The Hardwood Store of North Carolina, they have a buffet of hardwood lumber selections on display, something for every woodworker’s taste and bins of choices for every imaginable building project.

The family business is owned by Hilton “Hil” Peel, with daughters Helen Hobson and Sarah Butala serving as vice president of operations and vice president of sales, respectively.

Located at 175 Lane Parkway, Salisbury, they welcomed their first customer on Jan. 22 as they had their soft opening but will officially open their doors Jan. 29 at 8 a.m. Hours of operation will be Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 8 a.m. until noon. A grand opening celebration is anticipated at a later date.

He opened his original store in Gibsonville in 1996 and continues to draw in customers from the Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Greensboro and Durham areas.

Peel’s journey to becoming a business owner began as he was employed at another lumber company, and someone from a woodworker’s supply store told him on multiple occasions they needed to open a store near them in Graham. The man he worked for said he wasn’t interested in doing this, so Peel said if he wasn’t going to, then he would, so “I took a leap of faith, and it’s worked out well.”

Butala and Hobson shared memories of going to work on Saturdays in Gibsonville with their dad at a young age, helping clean or doing whatever task needed to be done.

Butala recounted a “vivid memory sitting in our living room floor with paper price catalogs that we had to fold, staple, and stamp,” and Peel shared a memory of Hobson learning to drive a forklift at an early age.

Butala left the healthcare field to join the company in 2017, and Hobson officially became full-time in 2021.

Peel said that the Salisbury location is the first satellite store, adding, “the first of many to come, hopefully.”

He also mentioned that there is potential, and it would be the daughters doing the opening of additional locations because he is 65, “so it’s time for them to take over and branch out and have lots of stores.”

Wanting to be closer to Charlotte and bring in customers from that area is what brought them to Salisbury. Therefore, this location “puts us an hour closer to Charlotte and South Carolina,” noting they receive calls asking if there is a store in those two areas.

There is also a demand for lumber, Peel continued, noting the enthusiasm to build is on social media with people watching and posting about their building projects.

Peel credited COVID for helping those in the lumber business because people couldn’t get out, so they would buy wood, go home, and take care of those projects that had been on those long-neglected to-do lists.

Earlier, he continued, “We catered to a small niche of a market, but with all the HGTV shows and Pinterest and all that, it’s just exploded.” Plus, people watching YouTube videos, Hobson shared, has added to that interest.

Peel shared that years ago, he was worried that their clientele would die off as those coming in were mostly middle-age and retirees.

“Now we’ve got college students coming in, high school students coming in, and it’s all because of the internet,” he said. “Every lumber company that I’ve talked to, it’s just been wide open.”

Customer demand is why The Hardwood Store of North Carolina specializes in both the hardwoods and exotic woods, Peel said, adding that it’s mostly small custom furniture builders and serious home hobbyists that are their two biggest customer bases.

The business does sell to builders, those doing custom cabinets and custom shelves, but they don’t deal with construction or construction-grade lumber.
“It’s strictly hardwood lumber and plywood,” he said.

They offer around 40 different species, Hobson said. The exotic woods are included in this count, which Peel said are used more by those higher-level woodworkers and not those new to the trade because they are more expensive. It’s those getting into inlays and the more fancy items.

In addition to the wide variety of lumber, the business will also be offering milling, custom moldings, Festool woodworking tools and Freud router bits and sawblades for sale, along with other supplies like wood glue, wood filler and cutting board and furniture oils.

In the Salisbury location, Peel noted they will only offer different thicknesses of lumber.

“Anything that needs to be ripped to width and S4S (surfaced on four sides) will be done in Gibsonville and brought down here, and the customer can pick it up.
The stock that they have at the store, along with promoting some of their woods that might be new to people, sharing what they look like and if it’s easy or hard to work with, can be found on their social media pages, a responsibility that Butala and Hobson will share.

Having done woodworking himself, Peel said his favorite to work with, and which they do have in stock, is mahogany, specifically South American Mahogany, which “works just like butter.” There are other types of mahoganies, he noted, but “they’re not the same. It looks completely different and works completely different.”

Cherry is his favorite when it comes to how the wood looks.

As far as those they deal with to buy the exotic woods, he said that “everybody we deal with does buy from sustainable forests so they’re not destroying the rainforest.

It’s all managed forests, plantation grown.”

For domestic timber, they have several sawmills that they purchase lumber from, the biggest being in New York.

Hobson said they skip plane the lumber, which means they take a sixteenth of an inch off, thus allowing the customers to be able to see the color of the wood and texture and know exactly what they are getting.

It is then sent through their optimizer saw, which rips two straight edges along the side, and at the end of that saw, there’s a printing station that stamps information on the actual board, including the species, dimensions and board footage, a process unique to their business, they shared.

They do ship their lumber anywhere in the United States, Hobson said, and have also shipped internationally, though their focus is domestic, Peel said.
Another part of their business that they focus on, shared Hobson, is their customer service.

“We try to help our customers the best we can, make recommendations based on their projects,” she said. “We don’t follow them around; we leave them alone, but when they do have a million questions, we try to help them the best we can.”

Peels shared that customers enjoy talking about their projects and are willing to share their knowledge with those younger and less experienced. He has seen customers interact with one another and if a question is asked how to do something, another will immediately drop what they are doing to answer and provide help.

“It’s a very friendly community of woodworkers,” he said. “Everybody likes to help everybody and show off what they build. It’s a great business to be in.”