We were lucky to catch up with Allen Hinshaw recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Allen, thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

It was easy for us, honestly. We know the value a warm and loving home can have for a family, and the impact it can make, and what helps create that environment is filling it with sentimental treasures. Some of these treasures need love or updating, and that’s where we come in.

Rachel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hinshaw Homestyle is a small business run by Allen and Rachel Hinshaw. It mostly focuses on refurbishing furniture, but in the past Allen has also done event planning and interior design. Really, the business is his “baby.” Allen went to college for interior design, and that was his plan but then the market crashed in 2008 shortly after, and jobs in that field became scarce. Many years later he discovered a love of giving new life to old pieces of furniture, and Rachel loved showing it off on social media. And really, the rest is history. While Allen and Rachel do carry on full-time careers (he works in sales, and she is a high school English teacher), Hinshaw Homestyle is currently a small business that they work on after they clock out of their jobs. At Hinshaw Homestyle, Allen works with lots of different clients to help them, customize their own pieces of furniture and refurbish them in a way that fits their needs while also keeping the integrity and sentimentality of each piece true to its nature. Searching for old discarded furniture and flipping it for a profit has also been some thing that Allen has been able to do in this business as well. Something people should know that really sets Hinshaw homestyle apart from many other furniture refurbishers is how much research goes into each piece. Especially with the pieces where Allen has free reign, he researches quite extensively in terms of appropriate color choices that would accentuate time.period pieces. Allen is able to see the potential in every piece, and he is likely to fall in love with it just as much as each client does; therefore, he treats each piece as his own, and does not deem the piece complete until he would be happy with it in his own home.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

We met in high school! We started dating probably a year after that, and at the age of 21, we got married. Even before we decided to start a business, we have always said that we make a great team, and that we are able to work really well together and complement each other strengths in a way that sets us apart.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

It’s a funny story really because before Allen got the job, where he is working now, he was let go of a retail management position that he was working at during the height of Covid. That gave us plenty of time to really delve into the business and see where we could expand. We had a little bit of savings and decided to shop around and do a lot of furniture flipping. Every single piece that we flipped sold, and being able to bring back a lot of these old vintage pieces that no one really wanted anymore, brought Allen so much happiness and purpose, so we decided that this was worth it to us to pursue while he searched for full-time work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @hinshawhomestyle
• Facebook: Hinshaw Homestyle
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Rachel Hinshaw