Niles’ Keller & Raven much more than furniture repair, upholstery
Published 9:53 am Thursday, August 27, 2015
Making old, worn down or mistreated furniture look brand new might pay the bills for the owners of Keller & Raven Upholstery, Home Furnishings and Vintage Fun in Niles.
Leader photos/CRAIG HAUPERT
John “Raven” Young stands near a custom entryway piece he built using pieces found at unique places in Niles and South Bend, Indiana, including the tin ceiling at the Paris Soda Shop.
But Elizabeth Keller and John “Raven” Young say they are having the most fun when they are creating custom furniture out of seemingly random pieces of things salvaged from old buildings, barns and roadsides.
“If we could spend all day doing that or ransacking old buildings, pulling out architectural salvage, we would do that all day,” Young said. “We will look at something and think that it would look cool as something else. Then it seems to go steps further.”
One does not have to look too far to see what Young is talking about.
In the middle of their store at 2830 S. 11th St. in Niles is a black entryway/hall piece made out of materials Young found in several different and interesting places.
The focal point of the piece is a six-paned mirror made from a 100-year-old window taken from a cottage on Diamond Lake in Cassopolis. The table’s apron is comprised of tin ceiling tiles from the 1852 Paris Soda Shop in Niles and the crown molding on top of the mirror is from Riley High School in South Bend in 1922.
The bottom of the piece features a portion of a door obtained from a 100-year-old home on the corner of Fifth and Cass streets in Niles. The legs were restored from dinette table that had been run over by a car.
If the story behind that piece sounds interesting, Young has many more equally as entertaining.
“That’s the fun thing for us,” Young said. “We can literally go around the shop and point these pieces out.”
Leader photo/CRAIG HAUPERT
Elizabeth Keller holds a Luly K Studio Elizabeth handbag. Keller makes the handbags and even does custom orders.
Young has been operating Raven’s Upholstery & Furniture Repair at the current location for nearly two years, but has operated out of downtown Niles and on 5th Street previously.
He has developed a reputation for being able to fix just about any piece of furniture or wood item, no matter how bad of shape it is in.
When his business partner died last year, Young brought on Keller — an old business acquaintance — to help out with upholstery and design.
“It definitely needed a woman’s touch,” he said.
Keller is the former owner of Elizabeth Bradford Designs in downtown Niles. She said she specializes in interior design, custom draperies and beddings.
“I help customers with fabrics and choosing the right styles for their homes,” she said. “I can come out and help with the whole package.”
Keller also sells her own line of customizable and premade handbags, called Luly K Studio.
“Anyone can come in and pick their own style and design their own bag with all of the fabrics we have here,” she said.
Keller & Raven also offer a service that allows people to pick out an upholstered piece of furniture for free as long as they buy the new fabric from Keller & Raven and allow them to do the work on the piece.
For more information, visit Keller & Raven on Facebook.
Keller can be reached by phone at (574) 274-5564 and by email at ebdzgns@yahoo.com. Young can be reached by phone at (269) 362-4449 and by email at ravensrepair@sbcglobal.net.
