A Season in Time
Visitors to Amish Country “in the know” have discovered The Cabin Store at Mount Hope.
The family-owned, community-oriented Amish showroom specializes in authentic, one-of-a-kind fine furniture you can’t find online or anywhere else.
Ervin “Junior” Yoder, The Cabin Store’s owner, transforms salvaged materials, mainly reclaimed barn wood, into environmentally-friendly furniture that’s both functional and fanciful, creating refined rustic retreats to unplug in.
The Cabin Store brims with unexpected delights.
There are live-edge river rock tables that glisten under trophy-size elk horn chandeliers matched point for point by distinctive root tree stump tables that find their form in the swamp.
“The roots are more exposed when they grow in the swap, and that gives them more character,” Yoder said.
Green design is gaining momentum, but when Yoder hung out his shingle in 2013, he stepped out in faith, embarking on a new venture that including taking reclaimed barn wood and creating meticulously carved fireplace mantels.
“It was a risk. Since the early ‘90s I’ve made furniture and I stepped away from a secure career,” Yoder said. “I wanted more time with my family, and I wanted to build something for them, so I went into business for myself. My wife, Marilyn, supported the decision 100 percent. I wouldn’t be here without her.”
Soon, The Cabin Store outgrew the family barn where Yoder initially carved out a niche for himself.
He moved to a more extensive showroom to make room for rustic living room chandeliers and coffee tables, lodge-style dining room tables and chairs, shabby chic bathroom vanities, and cottage bedroom sets.
From there, it was only a matter of time before The Cabin Store moved to an even more extensive showroom and its current location, at 7860 state Route 241.
Every piece in the showroom has a history—a life all its own worth preserving. “Some people tear an old barn down and burn it,” Yoder said. “We reclaim it. That way, fewer trees have to be cut down, but it also gives our furniture and decor its charm. We can use different species for the same piece of furniture. The farmer didn’t drag lumber from a hundred miles away to build the barn. He used the cleared oak, cherry, maple, and hickory that was there.”
The Cabin Store uses the variegated yet uniformly weathered wood to create pieces in a well-worn, warm, rustic milieu.
More than mere conversation starters, each piece produced at The Cabin Store has the unmistakable mark of genuine craftsmanship.
“It’ll last a lifetime from one generation to the next,” Yoder said. “We use barn floors and rafters. The wood has already lasted a hundred or more years,” Yoder said. “We don’t make furniture out of glue and sawdust here.”
Yoder finds strength in his faith-based Amish community. “We have one guy building drawers, then we have another guy bending chair-backs, and we have one who does dresser tops, and another guy who has a finish shop,” Yoder said. “There are four or five people, each with their cottage industry shops, involved in making a single piece. Everybody has their specialty, and when you put it all together, that’s when you get something really special.”
Inside The Cabin Store, Yoder is fortunate to draw on more than 75 years of collected furniture-making experience between himself, Dan Yoder, Daniel Troyer and Robert Raber. Family frames everything Yoder does. He and his wife have five children, Carolyn, Rebekah, Maynard, Ruth Anne, Joel, and a new son-in-law. Carolyn tied the knot with David Yoder in June.
Yoder invites anyone looking to de-stress to outfit their home with natural, authentically made Amish furniture, and “it doesn’t have to be the whole house, just a single room in log or lodge style, natural or barn wood,” he said. “It’ll become the most used room in the house.”
Visitors who have already discovered the joys of reconnecting with nature through rustic design know there are some things you can’t find online, and it’s better that way.
Visit The Cabin Store at Mount Hope at 7860 state Route 241 or get in touch by calling 330-674-1838. Hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.. They are closed on Sundays.