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June 30, 2015

You are here: Home / Articles / DIY Sisters find business inspiration in mid-century modern furniture and a shared love fordesign

DIY Sisters find business inspiration in mid-centurymodern furniture and a shared love for design

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Sisters Lisa Berland of Lexington and Laura Berland-Wyman of Lincoln arepartners in Retrocraft Design

In an airy light industrial space inWest Concord, sisters LauraBerland-Wyman and Lisa Berlandrenovate and transform vintagefurnishings to enhancecontemporary homes.

They launched Retrocraft Designstudio in 2011(www.retrocraftdesign.com) andalso have online stores on the e-commerce website Etsy(www.etsy.com) and the newvintage design website Chairish(www.chairish.com).

By Jane Whitehead

On a recent sunny afternoon, thesisters sat with me around arefurbished 1960s Park diningtable in their showroom andtalked about their mother’s geniusfor creative dumpster-diving, theirenthusiasm for mid-centurymodern design, their evolvingbusiness model, and thedynamics of being sisters inbusiness together.

A DIY INHERITANCE “We all grew up with a strong senseof design,” says Berland-Wyman, recalling their childhoodon the Chelsea/Greenwich Village border in Manhattan inthe late 1950s and 1960s. Both sisters attended PS 41,“where all the bohemian kids went,” she says, laughing.Their mother, a modern dancer by training, was an intrepidDIY decorator who furnished their home with curbsidetrophies.

“Nothing daunted her,” says Berland-Wyman: “She was always cutting legs off things, repurposing them.” Twomemorable transformations were the grafting of hairpin legs on to an antique oak pedestal table, and theconversion of a rattan chair into a giant hanging lampshade. Their father, a social worker by profession, wasalso a photographer who commandeered a bathroom as a darkroom and improvised sculpture out of foundobjects like pieces of driftwood.

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A fine mess! The sisters acquire pieces with goodbones just waiting for their moment to shine once again!

The interior of Retrocraft in West Concord is filled withlovingly transformed pieces.

Apart from a sense of design, color and the aesthetics of everyday life, the sisters also inherited their parents’can-do attitude. “That generation came out of the Depression, and they were just used to doing whateverneeded to be done,” says Berland. So whether it was upholstering a chair, making curtains or refinishing afloor: “You learned that you could just do it, you could figure it out,” she says.

A TRAINED EYE Both sisters have fine art training. While working as an editor and later, schooladministrator, and raising three children, Berland took many art classes at the De Cordova Museum in Lincoln.“Art was always there,” she says, “something I did in the background.” As a continuing education student at theMuseum of Fine Art School in Boston, her younger sister Berland-Wyman honed skills she used for manyyears as a decorative painter – “faux everything” – and color consultant. “I love working with color, I likematerials and I like working with my hands,” she says. Working primarily in other people’s houses had itsfrustrations, she admits, and part of the appeal of launching a small business was the prospect of moreautonomy and creative freedom.

As they started working together on the projects that would evolve into Retrocraft, the sisters studiedupholstery at the Elliot School in Jamaica Plain. “We did a very complicated chair as our project,” saysBerland-Wyman, who also took wood-working classes at the school.

THE ALLURE OF MID-CENTURY MODERN Theidea for Retrocraft grew organically out of the sisters’shared DIY projects over the years. Berland lives inLexington, Berland-Wyman in Lincoln, and they’vealways helped each other with home decorating.“When we first thought of it, we thought of takingpieces that we liked, and transforming them in someway,” says Berland. “We went out looking, and wereally had no clue what we were doing,” she says.“People gave us all kinds of things, we picked up stuffon the street.”

At first, says Berland-Wyman, “we just found thingsthat we liked, and we really weren’t looking for mid-century particularly, although we found those thingsand we loved them.” They found premises in thecrumbling Bradford Mill in West Concord, “huge space,cheap, lots of light,” and worked a few days a week,mainly painting antique pieces in bold colors and

selling them on Craigslist, reaching customers throughout the Greater Boston area. As the mill buildings wereupgraded, the rent went up, the footage shrank, and in 2013 the sisters found new space at 152Commonwealth Avenue, West Concord, near the Nashoba Bakery.

As the business gained traction, it became clear that“the mid-century stuff got so much more attention thananything else,” says Berland. Berland-Wyman thinksthe current enthusiasm for mid-century modern designcomes from an appreciation of its simple lines andgood craftsmanship, as well as a hunger for “eclectic,different, unique pieces.”

Both sisters emphasize that they’re not restorers –they often choose to alter the look of a piece with paintor a colored stain, or add a stenciled design, or othercustom element. An example is a rosewood coffeetable made from a piece of wood discarded during arenovation project at a local museum where it served as a bench. The rosewood top, with subtly roundededges and corners, carries the seal of the well known mid century Danish cabinet-maker, Ludvig Pontoppidan.The sisters commissioned welded steel legs to complement the rosewood grain and refinished the top, tocreate a handsome and unique piece. “We’re always thinking about what we can change up and make moreinteresting,” says Berland.

Lane Acclaim Dining Table Lane Altavista Credenza

Before: Custom upholstery gives this drabchair a new life.

After: Ready to add a beautiful accent toany decor.

The downside to the boom in all things mid-century modern is increasing competition. “The problem for us isthat it’s very competitive to buy this stuff now – it’s getting harder to find, harder to afford,” says Berland. Tokeep Retrocraft’s inventory fresh, she says, they work with a handful of dealers and businesses that specializein cleanouts, and as the profile of the business grows they find that more and more people bring mid-centurypieces to them.

A BUSINESS EVOLVES From selling a handful of pieces monthly on Craigslist, the sisters have developed ahybrid operation that relies on their constantly updated website, and online stores at Etsy, Chairish and Krrb, tobring customers into the store. They also send out a monthly email newsletter to around 600 clients,highlighting new items in stock.

“The idea is that people can go to the website and see what we have before they truck out here,” says Berland,“and mostly people come because there’s something specific they want to buy.” Recently, they have added arange of accessories including Austrian-made patterned throws by David Fusseneger Textiles, colorful mid-century cased-glass decorative pieces, and sturdy handcrafted brooms from rural Pennsylvania.

Early on, Berland and Berland-Wyman decided that shipping would not be part of their services, so clientsbuying directly from Retrocraft and through the Etsy store arrange their own shipping – a fact that has notdeterred a growing base of fans in California, Texas and New York. Retrocraft’s latest online venture is a storeon the website www.Chairish.com, which bills itself as “the first online consignment marketplace,” and handlesall shipping arrangements, for a cut of 20 per cent on sales. It’s a mark of Retrocraft’s growing reputation thatChairish invited their participation on the new site.

In the growing local market for mid-century modern design, the sisters see Retrocraft as occupying a uniqueniche. “There are some very high end mid-century modern retailers who are doing restoration,” says Berland.“We’re not competing with those guys.” At the other end of the scale, she says Retrocraft offers much morethan the average consignment store. “When we sell something we want it to be structurally sound and in good

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working order,” says Berland-Wyman. “We try to make people happy, and if something’s not the way they want,we try to make it right,” she says – an attitude that has garnered many enthusiastic reviews at Retrocraft’s Etsystore.

SISTER ACT Asked about how they divide up the work, and how they get on as business partners, bothsisters laugh. “We get on each other’s nerves,” says Berland. “We have different obsessions.” “I’m also aperfectionist!” admits Berland-Wyman. “Yes! To the nth degree!” agrees her sister.

Retrocraft seems to thrive on the sisters’ complementary talents. “I’m the CFO – I do all the books. I’m a littlecompulsive about keeping things in order,” says Berland-Wyman, laughing. “I ended up doing the website andthe photography,” says Berland, “and Laurie advises on colors and fabrics.” They employ one part-timeassistant, and switch off working Saturdays at the showroom.

“I don’t think people realize how hard it is to have a small business and make it work and have an income fromit,” says Berland. Trying to figure out the next move for the business is “on our brains all the time,” she says.And yet when the sisters pause to take stock of what they’ve achieved, they share a certain pride. “We didn’tstart with a business plan,” says Berland, “but here we are five years later with a business that people knowabout, that has a profile.”

RETROCRAFT DESIGN STUDIO

152 Commonwealth Avenue, West Concord. Tel: 781-320-9749/781-710-3911; email:contact@retrocraftdesign.com; showroom open Thurs. 1:00 pm-7:00 pm, Fri. and Sat. 11:00 am – 4:00 pm and

by appointment.

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