INDIANOLA — Rod Lester runs his hand across the old poplar board he’s freshly hand-sanded, and his face brightens with a look of satisfaction.

“I have to hand-sand some pieces of wood because if you planed it, you would take off the patina,” he explained.

“My son calls me the Wood Whisperer,” Rod joked about a comment once made by his 10-year-old son Nick. “I can look at a piece of wood and figure out what it wants to be.”

It’s that pride and attention to detail that are earning Rod and his wife, Amanda, rave reviews for their handcrafted furniture.

The couple has been building and refinishing furniture for 21 years, but about seven years ago they decided to start their own handmade country furniture and accessories business called Josiah Turner’s.

“First, we did painted country crafts for years,” Rod said. “But the crafts started dwindling, so we got back to our roots (of making furniture).”

All of the couple’s creations start with hand-selected and aged wood that was either harvested by Rod or came from dismantled barns in the area.

“The wood we use usually starts out as a log, and then we take it to an old-time saw guy near Boswell, Ind., who cuts the logs in his sawmill,” Amanda explained.

The lumber is then air-dried on the Lesters’ property in rural Indianola for two to three years before it’s used to build furniture.

“I have a moisture detector,” Rod said. “It depends on the wood, but oak takes a good three years to dry.”

Although Rod gets called out to cut down trees every year, which helps keep his woodpile stocked, this year he ran out of air-dried wood for his furniture-making business.

“A friend of mine in Eugene has a kiln, and I had to get dried wood from him,” he said.

Much of the barn wood the couple uses to build furniture with comes from the Civil War-era Hollingsworth Barn that once stood near Georgetown.

“The older the barn, the better,” he said.

Rod credits his grandparents for his vast knowledge of wood types and antique furniture as well as his past employment as a logger and a timber buyer for construction companies.

“My grandfather taught me the different types of trees. He used to let me mess around his workshop when I was kid, and my grandmother was an antique dealer.” he said. “I spent the summers with them in Rockville.”

Amanda’s love of Colonial American life and early-style furniture goes back to her teenage years.

“I’ve always been interested in early American furniture and read early American magazines in high school,” she said.

In fact, their furniture-making business is named after a Colonial-era cobbler that Amanda discovered while looking through an old folk art book.

“I was looking for something different,” she said about choosing the name.

The type of furniture the couple creates also takes its cue from the earlier times in American history.

“Our style is a little different than the rest of the people’s,” Amanda said.

The couple favors making primitive furniture with distressed finishes so it appears old and well-worn.

“It took years to get it in my head not to make anything straight or perfect,” Rod said of making primitive furniture. “It took (Amanda) years to get me to come around.”

To achieve that distressed look, Rod uses chains and other special tools, such as a cornstalk knife, to mar the surface of the furniture.

“I use anything to make it look like grandma has cut a million biscuits on the tabletop,” he said.

Amanda admits their neighbor thinks it’s odd that the couple beats up an otherwise perfectly fine piece of handcrafted furniture.

“Our neighbor says, ‘All that work you go through and then you distress it,’” she said. “But he likes the end product.”

So does Debbie Calvo, who co-owns Mercantile Antiques and Trading Co. in St. Joseph.

“I saw a cabinet that they made in another store and I liked it and that started it,” she said of her friendship with the Lesters, whom she met five years ago.

“It is unique, solid wood furniture that’s handcrafted,” Calvo said. “They also do custom orders which is nice because the furniture can be built to fit a certain area.

“The pride they put into it is apparent when you take a look at their furniture,” she added. “People can own handmade, well-made furniture for half the price of mass-produced furniture.”

In fact, many of the customer requests Rod receives is for furniture seen in popular catalogs.

“A lot of my ideas come from customers,” he said. “They show me a picture from a catalog or a magazine, and I like the challenge of trying to create it.

“I get a lot of input from customers,” he said. “A customer one time showed me a $1,400 work bench from Pottery Barn and I recreated it.

“I used cool, old poplar while Pottery Barn used pine,” he said.

The couple also builds cabinets, cupboards, harvest tables and hope chests. One special order entailed making hard maple countertops for a kitchen.

“It’s per customer order,” Amanda said of most of their creations. “He is meticulous, so it’s going to be built right and built well.”

Rod added, “I can’t seem to find the time anymore to design and create new products because I have orders from customers to fill.”

While Rod is the furniture builder of the duo, Amanda is the painter, perfecting a primitive finish on the painted pieces.

“If it’s a painted piece, she does it,” he said. “Amanda has gotten good at layering the paint.”

Then Rod added, “She’s more than a good painter; she’s my inspiration.”

On display

Josiah Turner’s country furniture and accessories, handcrafted by Rod and Amanda Lester of Indianola, can be seen at Mercantile Antiques and Trading Co. in St. Joseph, the Gifford State Bank Christmas Craft Show at Gordyville and the annual St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce Antique Show. The Mercantile phone number is 469-9001. The store hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The Lesters also may be contacted directly at 284-3190.