The Guild: Simply Amish
Co-founder and owner Kevin Kauffman still works closely with other family members at Simply Amish.
Kevin Kauffman literally grew up in his parents’ furniture shop, in Illinois’ Amish country. Along with his brothers, he developed woodworking skills and a respect for craftsmanship that continues today in the form of Simply Amish, a national maker and distributor of high-quality, Amish-made furniture.
The suite of bedroom furniture comes from the Arts & Crafts-influenced Sheridan collection.
The company works closely with a network of small, independently owned furniture shops that build pieces to the same specifications. Most are within 25 miles of the central distribution center. “Our craftsmen spend a lot of time, using hands and eyes, making sure the furniture is exactingly built to the standard we expect,” Kauffman says.
A craftsman builds furniture to exacting specifications in a small, Amish-operated shop.
Two of those shops are owned and operated by Kauffman’s brothers (one brother makes all the bed frames.) Some shops are as small as four or five people, while others employ up to 30 workers. Each piece of furniture is signed by the master craftsman who made it; a quality-control team inspects each piece before it ships.
Simply Amish offers several collections of recognizably Arts & Crafts furniture, including MaRyan, Aspen, Prairie Mission, Sheridan, and the rustic B&O Railroad. The company offers transitional and Modern lines as well. Furniture is made in seven different hardwoods, with hundreds of possible wood and stain combinations. Customers can further customize a bed frame or table by altering measurements or ordering a special finish, such as hand scraping or hand planing.
The round-top table is part of a collection developed in partnership with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum.
Craftsmanship details include solid, nearly indestructible joinery, hand sanding, and consistent finishes. Drawer box sides are made of 5/ 8"-thick hardwood with dovetailed corners, for instance; face frames are dadoed and double glued. “All of our furniture is meant to move from place to place, room to room. As long as it’s taken care of, it’s going to last multiple generations,” Kevin Kauffman promises.
Kevin Kauffman
Simply Amish
Arcola, Illinois
(217) 268-4504
simplyamish.com
