Meet Richard Lambert of Unfinished Furniture Colorado in Broomfield and Aurora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Richard Lambert.

Richard, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In 2005 I retired from the United States Air Force. After several unsuccessful attempts at starting a new career, I went back to school to become a secondary school teacher. I tried teaching for a few years and found that it didn’t work for me. After leaving teaching, I was back to trying to find another career. Again, I was met with disappointment. I tried unsuccessfully to get into business analysis. After a while, I decided to try my hand at business ownership. Through a business broker, I was introduced to the owner of Unfinished Furniture Boulder, located in Boulder, Colorado. In August 2008, my wife, Yvonne, and I finalized the purchase of the store and took over ownership.

In February 2019, we learned that the building we were leasing had been sold and the new owner was preparing to renovate the building. This meant we would need to relocate. Our search for a new location led us to a space in the Broomfield Plaza and we began preparations for the move. At the end of July 2019, we packed up the store in Boulder and moved to the new space in Broomfield. The move was a mixed blessing. The downside was that we were not prepared to make a move since we had owned the store less than one year. The upside was that the new location has been incredible. We are located on one of the busiest intersections in the area and see a lot more foot traffic. We continue to get people in the store that were shopping in the plaza or driving by on Sheridan and happened to see our sign.

We continue to look for ways to expand and this past month, we came upon a new opportunity. Yvonne was looking for some Dixie Belle paint, a line of paint we were thinking about adding to our store and found a retailer in the Heirlooms Antique Mall near our home in Aurora. When I went to the mall to purchase the paint, I learned that the retailer had left and the owner of the mall encouraged me to consider setting up a booth in the mall. Therefore, we now have a booth in the Heirlooms Antique Mall, where we sell our finishing products.

This has been a wonderful adventure. I really didn’t see myself as an entrepreneur until now. My experience in the Air Force taught me to take care of people and they will take care of you. In business, I find that to be very true. We strive to help our customers find the furniture that meets their needs and style.

Has it been a smooth road?
No, it has not been a smooth road. There have been a few obstacles along the way. Our first one was moving within our first year. We were strapped financially, and looking for retail space was new to me. I own several residential rental properties and I soon found out that commercial real estate is handled differently. Fortunately, our new landlord was very helpful and put us in contact with a great commercial realtor. As for the financial aspect, we were able to get a loan and we negotiated a favorable lease that included a tenant improvement allowance. This made the move possible and the new space has been better than what we had before.

One of our other struggles was the government shutdown in January 2019. Our sales in January and February of that year were way down from previous months. However, we managed to get through it. Another struggle was having one of our major suppliers close their doors in December 2018. This particular supplier was one of the few that would offer modifications to the furniture; for example, they would make bookcases in the exact size requested by our customers. Since then we’ve found an Amish builder that makes beautiful furniture and will modify the sizes as well.

Of course, there is the struggle of COVID-19. Because of COVID-19, we were closed from the end of April 2020 until the early part of June 2020. This closure has forced us to look at starting an online ordering system and because of this, we have made some positive changes to our sales system.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Unfinished Furniture Colorado story. Tell us more about the business.
We are an unfinished furniture store. We specialize in real and solid wood furniture that is ready to be stained, painted, or just have a protective coating on it. We have furniture made from alder, parawood, maple, oak, hickory, walnut, cherry, beetle kill pine, wormy maple, and pine. Our builders come from a variety of places, most of them in the United States. We have a couple of builders that are local to Colorado, an American company in Ohio that has been making furniture since 1900, several Amish builders located in the eastern United States, and furniture that comes from Asia and is distributed from North Carolina.

I’m proud of the fact that we are able to help most of our customers find quality furniture that meets their needs instead of settling for a style and finish that is available. All of our builders offer finishing in a variety of stains and paint colors, we also offer to finish the furniture for our customers if they would like us to, and of course, they can always do it themselves. For those customers that are finishing an item for the first time, we will guide them through the process. We pride ourselves in helping our customers and we are known for our service. I encourage our employees to make sure they greet each customer when they walk through the door and check-in with the customer throughout their visit. I’ve worked in sales a number of years and one of the things I dislike about my previous experience in sales is the high-pressure sales. We take the time to find out what our customer needs and present them with viable options. I’ve heard several customers comment that one of the problems they encounter in our store is there are many options. We find that our typical customer will visit us 3 or 4 times before they make their first purchase. In fact, we encourage our customers to take their time deciding on a purchase.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
In recent years there has been a decline in the demand for unfinished furniture, the recession of 2008 hit the furniture industry hard, especially unfinished furniture. I believe we are going to see a reversal of that trend. Recently, we seen an increased interest in refinishing/re-purposing old furniture. People are being creative and coming up with some amazing finishing to their furniture. For example, when we bought the furniture store, Yvonne decided to have our local builder make her a new table. We had a solid oak table that we purchased when I was stationed in England. My daughter-in-law asked if she could have our old table, however, the natural oak finish did not fit with the decor of her house and would need to be refinished. So, I refinished it using General Finishes Peal Effects and it is now a beautiful silvery/grayish dining room set that matches her decor.

All you have to do is look at social media and see the creativity of the DIYer. I believe we will see an increased interest in the DIY furniture projects. Paints and stains have gotten better and easier to work with, making it possible for more people to do their own finishing projects. As more people become aware of the availability of unfinished furniture, we may see more interest in it, while some people like the prep work of old furniture, such as sanding, not everyone does. This is where the unfinished furniture comes in and we hope to be a big part of making it happen.

Contact Info:

• Address: Broomfield Plaza
  5095 West 120th Ave
  Broomfield, CO 80020
• Website: www.UnfinishedFurnitureColorado.com
• Phone: (303) 443-8229
• Email: info@UnfinishedFurnitureColorado.com
• Instagram: @unfinishedfurniturecolorado
• Facebook: unfinishedfurniturecolorado
• Twitter: @UnfinishedFurn1

Image Credit:
Richard Lambert

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