Finds design provides a framework for successfully owning and operating a family-run business across multiple generations.

5th Generation of Furniture and Family at Finds Design and decor by brian austin

Brian Austin comes from a long line of furniture purveyors that goes back nearly one hundred years. It all began with his great-grandfather, who opened a furniture store in Southern California in the 1920s called Weatherby and Austin. In 1962, Brian’s grandfather, Earl, and father, Norman, moved to Chico and opened Austin’s Home Furnishings on the corner of 8th and Main Streets, now the home of Eighth and Main Antiques.

Chico was kind to the Austins, and in 1964, they opened a second store on the corner of 6th Street and Broadway called Austin’s Maple Shop. This store was geared toward providing specialty furniture popular during that era and evolved over the years to become a shop known for a little bit of everything. After Earl passed away in 1972, Norman began thinking about expanding. In 1985, the Austin family closed both downtown shops and moved their enterprise to the corner of the Skyway and Notre Dame Blvd., where they built a gigantic new 55,000 square-foot store complete with 25,000 square-feet of offsite warehousing and delivery space on nearby Meyers St.

Brian Austin began his career at the downtown furniture shop as a boy, cleaning and dusting the showroom. Over time, he and his siblings began to take on more responsibility until, eventually, Brian was heading up the enterprise himself. When his father Norman passed away in 1999, Brian was the only Austin kid still heavily involved in the day-to-day operation of the business, and he continued to run it successfully with help from his siblings. In 2006, Brian began to realize Austin’s was more his dad’s dream, not his own, and the scope of its operation was starting to feel overwhelming. He also felt Austin’s was losing sight of its values, and the things that had made the business special back in the day. “Austin’s was known for its incredible customer service,” Brian says. “As you grow, you lose that to a certain degree. My grandfather and father knew every customer. They were

friends, not just customers, and I really missed that.” For Brian, business isn’t just business. It’s a way to connect with your customers, to really get to know them and understand their needs. He decided it was time for a change.

With the rest of his family's blessing, especially his mother’s, Brian decided to close Austin’s Furniture in 2006. “I sat back for about a year after that, making sure I really wanted to move forward with something on my own,” Brian says. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing it because it was all I really knew, so I played around with different ideas and did a little soul searching to figure out what I really wanted. I still loved the business and the community, but I wanted something more manageable and unique to the furniture industry.”

In 2007, Finds Design and Décor opened its doors on Mangrove Avenue with Brian at the helm. Over the years, many people have asked him why he didn’t just call it “Austin’s,” and the answer is simple: “I really wanted the store to succeed or fail because of me and my efforts and not the family name,” Brian says. “A year after we came up with the name Finds Design and Decor, we added ‘by Brian Austin’ underneath it for the name recognition.” Occasionally, customers will come into the store who remember buying furniture from Brian’s father and grandfather. “We had a customer come in recently who remembered buying furniture from Grandpa Earl,” Brian says. “And once, we had a customer who said he had come in to shop when it was still downtown and was being helped by my dad. He and his wife had their two little kids with them, and the kids were being rambunctious. Grandpa Earl took the kids over to Shubert’s for an ice cream so the couple could concentrate on furniture shopping. That’s something we’ve always strived for: that outstanding customer service. We really aim to go the extra mile for our customers, and I think people are amazed sometimes at what we are willing to do for them.”

Many of the vendors from Austin’s, and a couple of the employees, made the move over to Finds, and Brian began adding new vendors who fit with his renewed vision of excellence in customer service and quality products. “We have two main seating products in our store,” Brian says. “Flexsteel is American-made and US-based, and Stressless (Ekornes) is out of Norway. We’ve been dealing with Flexsteel for over fifty years and Stressless for close to forty years now. We have great relationships with our vendors because we’ve been dealing with them for such a long time. It’s also a reason we’re able to be very competitive with our pricing. I want to be able to pass those savings on to my customers, so that they can keep buying quality products at an affordable price.”

At Finds, you can buy a piece of furniture for a room, or you can buy a whole room’s worth. They’ve even dressed whole houses for customers. Tia, one of Brian’s two daughters, is part of the fifth generation of furniture-selling Austins and the one in charge of helping customers with their interior design needs. She books design appointments with clients, measures their space, and makes suggestions based on their desires. The clients then come into the store to pick pieces from the showroom or to place special orders. “We have a wide range of styles,” Tia says. “Whether your style is modern or traditional or somewhere in between, we have something for everyone.”

One of the most intriguing things about Finds is the amount of options that are available. If they have the couch you want, but it’s not the right size, color, or fabric, they can customize it to suit your needs. “Many of our vendors have a wide range of upholstery and configuration options far beyond what we are able to display on the sales floor,” Brian says. “We have access to so much more than we show. If we don’t have what you’re looking for in the showroom, we can usually ‘find’ it for you.” Finds also offers delivery on both in-store purchases and special orders. They make deliveries to Chico and the surrounding areas on a regular basis, and will even go out of state. “We really try to accommodate the customer as best we can,” Brian says.

Anna, Brian’s other daughter, also helps sell furniture, but she prefers to stick to the business management side of things. “She focuses more on back-end paperwork and receiving, tagging, bill paying, and officetype stuff,” says Brian. “Even though both of my girls are capable of doing anything in the business, the things Anna really thrives in and enjoys doing are the things Tia doesn’t, and vice versa. They really complement each other, and I feel really blessed. They bring a lot to the business, and I love working with my daughters.” Both young women began visiting Austin’s as children, following in their dad’s footsteps. “They came down to the Notre Dame store when they were little and did what they could depending on their age and what they were capable of: filing, dusting, answering the phones, and helping Dad and Grandpa,” Brian says. They also grew up going to the furniture market when it was in San Francisco, helping with the buying decisions.

Brian Austin is proud of his family and of the work he’s done with Finds over the last fifteen years. He was able to bring back all the things he felt were missing at Austin’s and refocus on the days when the customer was more than just a customer—they were friends.

Visit Brian, Tia, and Anna at Finds Design and Decor, located at 1341 Mangrove Avenue in Chico. You can also find them online at www.furniturechico.com or reach them by phone at (530) 892-1905.