Warren County Furniture
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“This business has been here since 1944,” Ed said. “And it has been a family business from the first day.”
Lucille Stewart owned the business early on. Then her son-in-law, Herman Medley, who was Linda’s uncle, purchased it from Stewart. In 1980 the Partins became involved and began to buy into the business, finally taking it over completely in 1990. These days Ed and Linda are the only full-time employees.
Ed came to the business honestly, having been involved with his family’s furniture store, Tracy City Furniture.
“He was raised in the furniture business,” said Linda.
Both say they enjoy the furniture business, particularly the interaction with their customers.
“It’s great,” Ed said. “You get to meet so many different people. Having been here as long as we have now, we’ve dealt with different generations, with multi-generations. Kids that we coached in T-ball come in and have kids of their own now. It’s been fun to watch them grow up.”
“We’ve made some good friendships,” Linda added.
“Anybody that’s fortunate enough to get to work with people in Warren County has been blessed,” Ed continued. “It’s a good place.”
The Partins have tried to make service their main goal in dealing with their customers.
“I think the one thing we can offer that you don’t get at the big stores is a little more personal service,” Ed said. “Like today, Linda has worked probably with about five different customers, each of whom wanted to see individual fabrics for their own needs.
“That’s the one thing. It’s just like a little mom-and-pop grocery store,” Ed went on. “What does a mom-and-pop grocery store offer to compete with Wal-Mart and Kroger? Personal service.”
One of the things the Partins pride themselves in is their ability to allow customers to customize their furniture. After deciding on a style of upholstered furniture, the customer can look through a wide variety of colors and fabrics and special order the piece covered in that fabric.
“We can special order, not only sofas and couches,” Linda said, “but we can also do bedroom suites if you’ve got a certain need. We’ve got several different sources where we will look. We do a lot of special order business and try to customize it to that person’s home. We try to give a lot of individual attention to our customers.”
Special orders generally take around 30 days for upholstered pieces, and somewhat less for non-upholstered pieces, according to Linda.
“If we don’t have it in stock, we pride ourselves in trying to locate what somebody wants,” Linda said, “and we usually can get it for them.”
The Partins say their customers are the most important part of their business.
“We just appreciate everyone giving us a chance to serve them,” Linda said.
The store stocks a wide variety of name brands like Norwalk, Jetton, Hooker, Lane, Key City, along with the Stanley, Sumter and Carolina lines of cabinets and bedroom furniture.
Store hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. They can be contacted by phone at 473-5546.