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Txtur celebrates its one-year anniversary of sustainable furniture, made right here in Roanoke.
No doubt you’ve driven down a neighborhood street and seen old furniture on the side of the road, ready for trash pickup. As a third-generation furniture maker, Greg Terrill wanted to find a solution to this kind of furniture waste.
His solution was Txtur, a simple, stylish way to own sustainable furniture. Terrill is the CEO, and also the owner of Frank Chervan Incorporated, a company that has made furniture for a variety of commercial customers over the last 80 years. As Terrill and his team planned for Txtur’s launch, COVID-19 hit, a “bit of a blow” to the company. But they wouldn’t be deterred.
“Greg is forward-thinking,” says William Sellari, art director at Txtur. “Instead of furloughing people or shutting the plant down [when the pandemic hit], he made a big investment into residential furniture and started Txtur. It was sort of the solution to keeping our employees working, but there’s also so much furniture waste.”
Txtur launched their website in 2020, unsure of what to expect, but with enough support to validate their decision on moving forward. Once things began to open up again, people began showing up at their offices to see furniture.
“That was a conundrum,” Sellari admits. “We wanted to be direct-to-consumer and have everything online, but a really pretty picture of one of our sofas, and a picture of someone else’s, the look and feel, it’s not the same until you see the fine details and touch our products. A lot of our products need to be felt and experienced to really be understood. ”
So Txtur teamed up with Black Dog Salvage, where potential buyers could see and touch it. “Working with Mike Whiteside and Robert Kulp, they got it from the start and were early adopters,” says Sellari. “BDS has been a great partner who understands the value of things being sustainable.”
But the ultimate goal of their own space lingered, and about a month before their one-year anniversary, the Txtur team spent a “furious” three weeks turning part of their warehouse into a showroom. Sellari says it’s been “fantastic” for their business, not only because of the experience of knowing the furniture it made, but through plant tours. Guests see the work being made locally, some by employees who have worked there for 65 years, others who are 18 and starting to learn a valuable trade. The average years of experience at their plant is about 22 years, so Sellari says it’s “part of our ethos.”
“We even have a five-access CNC router from Italy and a 1920 bandsaw that’s been retro-fitted to work well, which sums up a lot about our approach!”
Manufacturing in the area largely went away during the pandemic, but because of supply chain issues – a frame made by a manufacturer in Vietnam gets sent to China for upholstery, and so on – it can be six months or more for someone to do what Txtur can do, start to finish, in a month. You could be enjoying your custom furniture in as little as six weeks.
“We pride ourselves on that,” Sellari says. “Authenticity is really important when it comes to spending money on those kinds of things. If you’re going to make that investment, it’s good to check off as many boxes as you can. Our furniture doesn’t come in a box that you have to assemble yourself. It comes ready to go. Making furniture, we’re in the unique position to build things that last, rather than something designed to have a limited or short lifespan so you buy more.”
Meanwhile, customers have kept the showroom busy, with visitors coming from Charlottesville, Abingdon and Blacksburg. “We’re delighted by the response,” Sellari says. “The community response was fantastic, not only with people buying it, but supporting us with the sustainability side of things. A bunch of local businesses are buying furniture … so it’s nice not only to make it here, but for it to live with local businesses that celebrate this area and are so unique to Roanoke.”
What’s next for Txtur? The team is working on getting their company to zero waste and have come up with “a lot of new and innovative ways to make furniture and reuse everything from our sawdust to our foam remnants.” The plant itself is vertically integrated, with employees recycling scrap wood and making their own boxes, frames and more for that sustainable push.
Need to downsize? You can even return your product to Txtur so they can repurpose the piece, and you can feel good about upcycling so that your furniture finds a second life in a new home.
Visit the Txtur showroom at 1864 9th St. SE in Roanoke or learn more at txtur.com.
The story above is a preview from our January/February 2022. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
