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Hand-crafted with care
Foley woodworker builds cabinetry business, loyal customer base
BY HANS LAMMEMAN | STAFF WRITER
From within a workshop tucked off a county road near Foley, Randy DeMarais has crafted a name for himself in the competitive cabinetry industry using nothing but power tools, old-fashioned customer service and a border-line obsession with top-of-theline woodworking.
Fittingly aligned with his business, DeMarais literally built Innovative Cabinet Designs from the ground up in 2015, clearing trees from a corner of his hunting land and designing the facility he works out of today.
of time kicking up sawdust and staining wood in the shop, DeMarais credits time spent away from the building as a secret to his success.
“I go out and meet with the people,” he said. “I measure and design the jobs.
We build them, and I install them. I see the project all the way through. That’s a
Nowadays, his close-knit crew of coworkers consists of his girlfriend, Nikole Anderson, and her son, Noah Webb. The team stays busy with a constant flow of orders despite no marketing campaigns other than wordof-mouth advertising. But for DeMarais, his fascination with woodworking came long before he developed a following for his quality work.
“In high school, I used to do a lot of refinishing of old antique furniture,” he said. “I just loved antiques, and then somebody asked me to build them a small kitchen cabinet. At first, I wasn’t going to do it, then I decided (to) and have been doing it ever since.”
For an industry that requires a lot
2015 using money from a retirement fund
with the Foley Fire Department.
big thing for people.”
Anderson, the bookkeeping and business specialist, said DeMarais excels in allowing customers to express their vision while gently guiding them to a product that will ultimately look best.
“He is very helpful with design, helping customers figure out their
A supplement to the
kitchens — what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “People get ideas (from) Pinterest that they don’t realize will not fit in their kitchen. Randy is very good at getting people to see the reality of what they’re saying.”
Even before enrolling in a woodshop class at Foley High School, DeMarais was familiar with the whirring of saws cutting wood. His grandfather, a carpenter, planted the seeds for a fascination for woodworking when he allowed DeMarais to watch and learn in the garage.
No matter how much experience a person may have, though, DeMarais said cabinetry requires a ceaseless willingness to learn new skills.
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PHOTOS BY HANS LAMMEMAN
Randy DeMarais inspects unfinished woodwork Aug. 28 in the Innovative Cabinet Designs shop near Foley. DeMarais designed and built the workshop in
after 20 years of service
The Innovative Cabinet Designs team — Noah Webb (from left), Nikole Anderson and Randy DeMarais — smile together Aug. 28 outside the workshop west of Foley. DeMarais launched the company in 2015.
