Rural Furnishings
Day man builds career out of rustic furniture
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Following a career on the U.S. Kayak team, competing in national and international tournaments, Jim Schreiner wanted to do something outside of a typical office setting.
In the early 1990s, he decided on building rustic and traditional furniture professionally.
“I wanted to be able to work outside in the yard if I wanted to,” said Schreiner. “I used to take the stuff on a boat and just work on it on the boat as I floated around the lake, too. It’s nice.”
Schreiner created Great Sacandaga Designs. He lives and works in one of three octagonal log cabins that he built on the south shore of the Great Sacandaga Lake in Day, N.Y. in the decades before opening the business.
On Wednesday, however, Schreiner found himself in Saratoga Springs Public Library to kick off another year of Artists in Action as about a dozen individuals listened and asked questions about his passion.
Each month, beginning in the summer of 2013, wide-ranging artists discuss their projects, instruct interested individuals on their processes and answer various questions. The free presentation takes place on the first Wednesday of each month in a community meeting room.
“I go to the wood working shows, I go to all of the art shows and just find a lot of great artists, and we’ve had a lot of fine artists,” said Chris Alexander, who coordinates, with Saratoga Arts, the lineup of artists. “But we’ve also had toll painters and basket weavers and fiber artists and the woman who owns Saratoga Momma came in and did a spinning demonstration, so it’s just had a lot of different things, which has been a lot of fun.”
Schreiner said numerous estates in his area had rustic furniture, so during the early part of his career he continued to build pieces for those near his community. Since then, he’s noticed more people have learned about rustic furniture in places like Lake George.
Schreiner doesn’t start making a project until someone has bought it. Some of his orders are specifically customized, while with other orders the buyer gives Schreiner the freedom to create what he wants. Schreiner explained how he gets items to work with nearly two years in advance — various things such as firewood, bark, fossils and more — to complete a number of different projects.
His specialty, however, are cabinets. The prices of cabinets ranges from about $8,000 to nearly $50,000. But some require hundreds of hours of work.
“I did a project for three years, so if you broke it down to the hours it’s a good thing it was sold ahead of time,” said Schreiner. “Because if I had to build that over a three-year period and try to sell it to fit in someone’s space, it would have been different.”
Schreiner has made chairs, dressers, sofa and coffee tables, entertainment centers and plenty of picture frames.
“I’ll make anything that the person wants,” said Schreiner.
For more information about Schreiner and his work, visit www.greatsacandagadesigns.com.