Published July 2004

Martha’s Design Center:
Adding character to places, spaces

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

After its recent move from 2930 to 2927 Rucker Ave., in downtown Everett, Martha’s Design Center’s new home is still a work in progress.

The spare storefront lacks the ornate columns befitting a manufacturer and retailer of custom molding. And the shop windows aren’t nearly large enough to showcase the fireplace mantels, screen-door frames and other works produced within. These are things owner Martha Augustson plans to remedy in time.

Snohomish County Business Journal/ KIMBERLY HILDEN As owner of Martha’s Design Center in Everett, Martha Augustson works with clients to craft fireplace mantels, interior and exterior window treatments and other molding work that give residential and commercial buildings a character of their own.

But for longtime customers and potential clients of Martha’s, all the essentials are in place: Augustson working a scroll saw or designing gable fretwork; son Billy Bolt crafting the wood as he has done for the past 10 years; and a thick album of photos detailing years of making ordinary houses into welcoming homes.

“I work with all design styles,” said Augustson, who started in the woodworking business in 1978, founding Arvid’s Historic Woods with her late husband, Arvid Augustson. “...Because something is modern does not mean it has to be ugly; it can have a classical look. We have the molding for it.” If there’s a look or style that’s not in the company’s catalog, Augustson and Bolt will get to work creating it.

“My business is unique, as we always do the specialty. I don’t compete with anybody — if somebody already makes it, I send customers to them,” she said.

Helping clients select from the many styles of woodwork available begins with focusing on one element of the home that they have a problem with — whether it’s the fireplace mantel or the crown molding, she said. Once that’s taken care of, then it’s on to the next problem.

“It’s not unusual for customers to come in and price projects and take it piece by piece. I have customers who I work with for years,” said Augustson, noting that she has been blessed with the “best customers.”

Augustson recently learned that she has the best neighbors, too.

When she decided to move across the street in March, staff at nearby Aamco Transmissions volunteered to move the design center’s heavy machinery and painted the building’s exterior; a stylist at Hairforce brought over a ladder — and her husband — to paint “the real high places”; Image Masters created a “last-minute banner”; and Puget Sound Woodworking “helped with a job we were having trouble with,” Augustson said.

“You can’t put dollar signs on that — how do you say thank you for that?” she said, smiling.

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