EVERETT – Budget Furniture survived nearly 40 years, through three owners, an arson fire and bust cycles at the Boeing Co.’s Everett plant, the employer for many of the furniture store’s early customers.
But when the business lost money for the first time last year, owner Dick Oril knew it was time to move on. The business ends its run this week.
“We had quite a few people come in and say, ‘I bought furniture here years ago and I can’t believe you’re closing,’” said Oril’s daughter, Jennifer Meier, who has worked for the business for 16 years.
Budget Furniture got its start in the late 1960s, when Larry Van Winkle, whose family had operated a furniture store in downtown Everett, closed that store and opened a furniture rental store in south Everett. He then sold it to Art Able, a business professor in Olympia, who bought the store for his wife to run. Oril, who grew up in Marysville, joined during that time as a part-time clerk and deliveryman.
Not long after, Arble offered to sell the business for $80,000 to Oril, who borrowed $10,000 from his mother and made the deal in 1971.
Business was good enough that Oril paid back his mother within a year and owned the enterprise outright by the end of the second year. The store was the first in the region to sell Ashley Furniture.
“Good, useable, middle-class furniture at a good price,” is how Oril describes what he sold and rented to customers. He didn’t do much advertising, in order to keep his prices down, but word of mouth was enough, he said.
In September 1992, the store was destroyed in a fire set by now-convicted arsonist Paul Keller. Oril fondly remembers his customers’ support as the business moved to a new location on Evergreen Way and started over.
Since then, competition in the furniture-retailing sector has grown fierce. Oril said he could never afford to advertise in the same way as the region’s larger furniture sellers. Now, the Ashley brand he boasted of at his store can be found on sale nearly everywhere.
Oril, who retired a while ago from the day-to-day operation of the store, he said he’ll miss it. The business employed about five people. “It’s been a very good store,” he said.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
Budget’s last day
Budget Furniture, 7815 Evergreen Way in Everett’s Evergreen Campus Plaza shopping center, will be open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, its last day.
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