When Army veteran Brian Weatherly bought his upholstery business in 1977, it was just a small company in a small building in Old Town Silverdale.
Since then, in the 36 years that it has been in the family, the business expanded into another building and services offered have grown and evolved.
And four years ago, Weatherly officially retired and passed the business on to his daughter Melissa Richardson.
“We started out fairly small,” said Weatherly. He still helps out on special projects.
But Weatherly said Navy contracts helped the business grow.
“The bulk of our work was for the Navy,” said Weatherly. “A good part of it still is.”
For the Navy, they make security covers, curtains, desiccate kits and more.
While the most common job they do is small patches and repairs, they provide many other services, such as upholstering boats, awnings, furniture and cars, Richardson said.
The Weatherly family started working in upholstery before Brian was discharged from the Army. His brother, John, learned upholstery as a trade and taught it to his brothers, including Brian.
When Brian returned from Vietnam, he started helping out in his brother’s shop in California before moving to Washington in 1977, where he purchased Silverdale Upholstery and Canvas within a year.
“It was a strange time to return to civilian life,” Weatherly said.
He was drafted in the Army in 1962, and was deployed to Vietnam in 1964. He shipped out a month before his daughter, Melissa, was born, and didn’t return home until she was about a year and a half old.
In Vietnam, he contracted malaria and spent time in a hospital in Japan.
Looking back, his daughter recalled the era as a difficult one for her father.
“It was a difficult time, the late ‘60s,” said Richardson. “The military was still with him (her father), even if he wasn’t in it.”
Despite all of that, “he was always around for me, as a dad,” she said.
It was an easy decision for Richardson to join the family business when her daughter was born in 1996. She liked that it was a family business, and that she didn’t have to worry about repercussions if she needed to miss work if her daughter was ill.
“It’s always been a family first kind of thing here,” she said. “The kids have all grown up here. It’s just made it a much more family-friendly business, and much easier, much less stress.”
And there’s great joy in working with your hands, she said.
“There is a certain amount of satisfaction of having a physical product that you have labored over,” said Richardson.“I enjoy the freedom and creativity portion of it. It’s creative production.”
But there is stress inherent in any job, especially for the owners of a business, according to Weatherly.
“If you think owning and running your own business gives you lots of freedom, it doesn’t,” he said. “You put in far more hours than if you worked with someone else. But you can do it your way.”
Now that she runs the store, Richardson knows first-hand that the hours are long and the pay is low, but she still enjoys it.
“I like to help the people figure out what they want,” she said. “When it exceeds their expectations, then that’s always fun.”
For more information visit their website at www.silverdaleupholsteryandcanvas.com.