WICHITA — After years of working from their home and then in a storefront in the tiny town of Marion, Pat and Daryl Enos this week moved their River Mill Woods furniture and picture framing shop to Chisholm Trail Center-Outlet & Retail Shops in Newton.
“Marion is our hometown, and it is a wonderful little community, but the word there is ‘little,’” Pat Enos says. “We simply needed more bodies to come through the door.”
Daryl Enos started River Mill Woods part time in 1988 while he still was teaching drafting in public schools.
“He would make furniture in the summertime, break time, things like that,” Pat Enos says.
In 1993, she started doing picture framing “just to see what I could do at home to help the family income out.”
They took the business full time in 2000.
Daryl Enos designs and builds all of his furniture, much of it to a customer’s specifications.
“That’s a lot of what he’s doing is custom building,” Pat Enos says.
“Everything you see, either Daryl or myself has pretty much fabricated up.”
She does all kinds of framing, from children’s art to conservation work to even an antique wedding dress.
“The whole gamut there.”
Their new store is 1,200 square feet.
Pat Enos says they’d love to grow the business enough to add employees and a manufacturing facility.
Daryl Enos’ wood shop is at their home in Marion, and he won’t be in the store on a day-to-day basis.
“Even though he’s more than half the business, you won’t see him very often,” Pat Enos says.
The store is named for Daryl Enos’ family’s former flour mill, part of which is still standing on their property.
“That’s what we see every day,” Pat Enos says.
The store will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Pat Enos says she and her husband are both in their 50s and are starting to see a lot of their friends retire.
With the new shop, though, she says, “We feel like we’re just gearing up.”
In Marion, she says they were just keeping their heads above water in tough economic times.
They feel good about the opportunity at Chisholm Trail.
“I guess we’ve got renewed energy,” she says “We’ve got a lot of optimism.”
