After 25 years, Today’s Traditions Furniture and Design on Thompson Bridge Road will close its doors.
Co-owner and interior designer Gail Wolfe began designing homes in 1978, opening the store in 1994, said the timing was right, after she suffered two injuries that prevented her from working in the store for 10 months last year.
“I’m the prime seller and you just don’t recover when you’ve been out for 10 months. We worked with other designers, but still, that’s a lot I took away,” said Wolfe. “It’s one of those things that it’s meant to be and it will work out. It’s bittersweet, it really is.”
Wolfe’s son, Cameron, is the other co-owner. Gail Wolfe said it was time for her son to pursue other business interests as well.
While her son moves into other business ventures, Wolfe doesn’t plan to take it easy, either.
“I am not retiring. I was out 10 months, I don’t want to stay home!” Wolfe said.
While they can no longer order anything for customers, the show room has plenty of pieces up for sale and more in stock, from living room and bedroom sets to decor and artwork.
“We have 20% off lamps, prints and accessories and then the furniture is marked and we’re doing further reduction on that,” said Wolfe. “And we’ve been covered up. Last week, we sold probably 25 sofas.”
The store has had three locations throughout the years, on E.E. Butler and John Morrow Parkways and its current location on Thompson Bridge Road.
Wolfe credits the store’s success over the past 25 years to selling quality, American made furniture and upholstery, designing homes for the inhabitants and not in a “cookie-cutter” style, and having a warehouse full of paid-off furniture to sell during the 2008 recession. But she credits the store with cultivating successful friendships, connected relationships and a supportive community.
“We have been so blessed with dear friends that have lasted all over the years and I feel like I can meet them in the grocery store, or in the mall, or anywhere else and I have no regrets because they all know they love their furniture, I’ve never sold anything I didn’t want to put in my house,” said Wolfe. “That to me is 95% of the most important thing, it’s those friendships and knowing you treated everyone you worked with as fair as you could and had no regrets.”
Today’s Traditions Furniture and Design will sell until the stock room is empty, Wolfe said, adding that a New York-based company was handling close-out dealings.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2019/7/813684/gainesville-based-furniture-design-company-to-close-after-25-years