Martha’s Design Center creates custom mantels and moldings

Published 4:04 pm Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Sometimes, Martha Augustson pays wooden tribute to her customers. She’s happy to explain how.

The owner of Martha’s Design Center pulls out a thick book of patterns, containing more than 1,000 styles of molding and mantels and points to a design.

There is the Dilgard, for instance, a thin molding that uses the surname of a local historian David Dilgard, or the Nancy Anne mantel, which gives a nod to the first customer who ordered a particular piece. It’s a folksy way of putting the customers first at the family-run shop.

Martha’s Design Center plans to bring that pattern book to the Everett Fall Home Show this Friday through Sunday. The business will be setting up at the Comcast Arena at Everett to help expand recognition of its new downtown Everett design center, which specializes in custom-designed mantels and moldings.

“All I’m doing is accommodating what the customer’s needs are,” she said. “Everybody has a different feel for how they want their house to look, to make them comfortable.”

Speaking of comfort, the center seems to be settling into its small downtown location on Hewitt Avenue, where it relocated in January. The spot already has a lived-in feel. Wood chips speckle the floor and piles of molding lean against the wall, showcasing pieces of mahogany, fir and composition wood, a less expensive molding material, Augustson said.

Prices for molding range from about $2 to $5 a foot, and the store mainly caters directly to homeowners. The center doesn’t install its moldings, however. Augustson keeps a pile of the names of contractors she considers reliable on her counter, ready with referrals should a customer need help.

The shop carves all its own moldings, fashioning sharp-edged steel blades that cut out new designs. Augustson said some of the best, however, are patterned after classic styles, which her shop also mimics.

“The old designs are so livable,” she said. “They are so true to how the combination of coves and surfaces should be, you never get tired of them. Ever.”

While the design center’s moldings can help frame a ceiling or floor, its mantels offer an ideal resting place for family memorabilia. The mantels cost on average about $1,200.

Each mantel has a hollowed out section on its back, with a piece of beveled wood attached to it. The bevel mirrors another piece that can be screwed to the wall, making it simple to hang.

“I make them so they’re no-brainers,” Augustson said.

While Augustson serves as the face of the store, manning the front counter, her son Billy Bolt runs the design center’s workshop. He’s often responsible for cutting the moldings and making blades to mimic or create new designs.

He said there is an element of art to reproducing moldings. A customer may bring in a piece of rotted wood that’s been painted several times, for instance. He cuts a blade that can replicate the same curves.

“I’m into precision,” he said. “I’m into making sure everything’s exact.”

Together, Bolt and Augustson hope to cater to the needs of their customers from their new downtown location. After changing locations at least half a dozen times in the past 15 years, the shop plans to stay in its new home. And while that’s certainly a good thing, Augustson also sees an upshot to her past moves, which found the design center working out of Snohomish, Marysville and several other Everett locations.

“It wasn’t negative at all,” she said. “I think it ended up increasing our client base. What a way to do it, though.”

Andy Rathbun

425-339-3455

arathbun@heraldnet.com

Martha’s Design Center

1806 Hewitt Ave., Everett, 425-343-8561, www.marthasdesign.com.