GALION–The Wendlands and woodworking go hand in hand.

Loren and Karen Wendland spend every day in their woodworking shop. A 30-by-40-foot gray pole barn next to their home on South Street where they turn basic boards into birdhouses, welcome signs, and countless crafts for inside the home and out.

“I just love working with my hands and wood,” said Loren Wendland, 71, as he sat at the workbench where he was in the process of assembling a whimsical “hugging cat,” birdhouse. “I like taking a blank piece of wood and turning it into something.”

Wendland is the wood smith of the operation, while his wife conjures up ideas for projects on Pinterest and does all the lettering and painting. “I just can’t envision doing anything else,” she said. “If we were younger, I would probably be flipping houses.”

The two, both retirees, also take custom orders and repair rotted window frames, wooden benches, and chairs.

But mostly, they devote their days to creating crafts–block snowmen, yard signs, wishing wells, and plenty of patriotic, sports, and seasonal décor.

It’s always been a dream.

Wendland said his grandfather, a tool and die maker with only a fifth-grade education, was his inspiration at an early age. He fashioned a clasp for his Boy Scout uniform bandanna and, when Wendland was 10, built him a special sled for Christmas when his parents couldn’t afford one.

“When my grandpa made that sled, I thought, ‘I want to work with wood too,’” Wendland recalled of his skill and creativity. “He wasn’t one to sit around, so he taught himself how to be a tool and die maker and then after that a pattern maker.”

Wendland, a Vietnam veteran who worked for the railroad most of his life, always dabbled in woodworking in the small garage behind their home. “And every night when Karen came home from work, I had to shut everything down so she could get her car in there.”

He tackled minor home remodeling projects and made shelves, potato bins, and lawn and garden decor for Karen in his spare time until, five years ago when he retired, the property next door went on the market. He bought the house, tore it down, and erected the pole barn in its place.

Naturally, he built the workbench, desk, and storage bin for lumber, along with the shelves neatly organized with clamps, screws, nuts, and bolts. Then, “like a kid in a candy store,” he acquired a bigger band saw, drill press, planer, and the mainstay–a contractor table saw.

The workshop is well lit, complete with a water hook-up and heated concrete flooring. Karen, who worked 28 years in the retouch department of Lifetouch Industries, has her own paint table under a window, with storage for brushes, stains, and countless colors of indoor and outdoor paint.

Wendland said he orders some of his patterns from woodworking catalogs such as “Miesel” and “The Winfield Collection.” Sometimes he and Karen travel to area craft shows, “and if we see something we’d like to make, we buy it,” Karen admitted.

But basically, they’re content sawing and sanding. Side by side, fulfilling a retirement dream.

“It’s just a hobby for me,” Wendland said. “I’m not a master craftsman, but I’m satisfied with my work. A lot of the creativity comes from Karen. She’ll say, ‘Can you make this?’ and I always say, ‘I’ll try.’” Share this:Facebook LinkedIn Twitter