OCEAN CITY – Furnish your home with exactly what you pictured by stopping into Kendall Home Furnishings and creating your own piece of art through its new customize your own program.
Kendall Home Furnishings is located off Route 50 in West Ocean City and has been in business in the local market for seven years. The store’s newest location has been open for about two years now and lies in Fenwick Island.
The business was originally located in Fredrick, Md. One of the family’s favorite stores in Frederick was a juvenile store called Furniture for Kids, where everything was sold from cribs to teenager bed room sets.
Owner Joe Kendall now shares his life in the area with his wife, Alyson, and two small children, Brooks and Brody. His mother, June, also lives in the area and has come out of retirement to run the Fenwick location.
“We were fortunate to purchase a small beach property and loved the beach life, and thought we could be successful down here and so far so good,” Kendall said.
The store in Fenwick Island underwent an eight-month renovation this winter, doubling its its show room space by adding a second floor.
The West Ocean City store is 10,000 square feet of show room floor exhibiting any kind of furniture needed.
“If it is furniture for the inside or outside of your house, we have it,” Kendall said.
The West Ocean City location is joined next door by the store’s third operation, which is a consignment shop.
“The consignment store is a nice accompaniment to Kendall’s, but it is way more than just a consignment shop,” Kendall said.
The consignment store offers never used new items from the home furnishings store that has been selected because of its value, scratch and dent items from the showroom floor and used items brought to the store that they are selling for clients.
“What is great about Kendall’s is that we have all the bases covered,” Kendall said. “If you are 23 and just got out of college and are on a limited budget and you want to furnish your first place, we can set that up. If you just purchased a large estate home and need decorating and design, we also offer that. Our staff is diverse.”
Kendall said what he and his clients value the most is the store does not believe in the commission paid sales person.
“Almost every store is commission based and it leads into a situation where you may be told things where they don’t benefit you, they benefit the sales person,” he said. “That is something we really work hard on.”
Kendall takes pride in the time sales people take to educate a customer on the product, especially those in the market for mattresses.
“We encourage people to shop at big mattress places and nine out of 10 come right back to us and make their purchase here,” Kendall said.
When The Dispatch sat down with Kendall, he was excited to share the store’s new “You Design Sofa” program. It is a customizing process in which customers can create their own sofa. The process starts out in choosing the size of the sofa and then progresses through the selection of firmness, style of cushions, seat backs, arms, skirt, legs, color and fabric.
“It’s like over 50,000 combinations at your fingertips and that has been a smashing success for us,” Kendall said.
Kendall may seem all about business but his involvement with the community and local charities is continuous. For example, in February of this year he completely furnished a home donated to a mother and her three young children, all under the age of seven, in Ocean Pines.
“We asked Joe if he could help out with the donation of a couch or something else, and he stepped up and furnished the entire house,” said Family Connections Director Lori Carson in February. “He really got into the spirit of this and we can’t thank him enough.”
Kendall has also serves on several boards including the Atlantic General Hospital Foundation Board of Directors, Ocean City Paramedics Foundation and the Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
Kendall office is the show room floor, and he and his staff are accessible daily.
“It is just a blast meeting new people and working with new people,” he said. “Customers are our most important asset. Nothing makes me feel happier when a customer comes back. That’s what it is all about and that is what makes it exciting.”