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Bonnie Rickman

“Just today, a ninety-year-old woman brought in a little wicker rocker,” Bonnie Rickman says.  “She had a photo of herself as a child standing by the rocker.  She wants us to re-do it for her great granddaughter.”

Bonnie and her husband, Paul, run an antiques and refinishing business in Traverse City.  “We started out buying antiques at garage sales and reselling them to dealers,” Bonnie says,  “Then I said, “This piece would be real pretty if it was refinished.’”

“We have favored oak furniture because the wood has a lot of character,” she says.  “Quartered oak especially has a very dense grain that won’t warp.”  Furniture made today isn’t of the same quality.  “What looks like grain is often just a photo finish over particle board,” Bonnie says.  “But if a piece has been around a hundred years, it will go another hundred if you take care of it.”

It’s not easy being self-employed, she admits.  “You don’t have normal hours and some days you eat steak, some days you eat beans.”  Still, she stays for the love of it.  “I like the people,” she says, “and also bringing a piece back to pass down to the next generation.  It’s awesome in a way.  We’re the recyclers.”