The business closed after Jim Miller passed away in the fall of 2016. Shortly after, the building where Miller oversaw the making and selling of living room furniture was sold by his estate.
However, his son Jeff Miller wanted to continue his legacy. When the store closed, Jeff looked at ways to restart the family business.
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“I worked with my dad for most of my adult life. This was his legacy. I wanted to continue that,” Jeff Miller said, adding that he started building furniture for his father as a teenager. As an adult he would later sell it in his father’s showroom along with brand names.
Though Jim Miller had started selling furniture in the years before moving operations to Enon in 1972, the small village would become his main place of business until his death at the age of 89.
Miller’s storefront was on Dayton-Springfield Road and he had a workshop next door where employees made furniture from scratch.
After those properties were sold, his son Jeff was able to purchase a different building located on the outskirts of Springfield. Though it was smaller than the previous location, it had enough space for a showroom as well as equipment to make living room furniture and mattresses.
That space once belonged to Jim Miller. Wood frames were made at that location before being shipped four-miles down the road to the Enon store.
Jeff Miller was able to buy back the space last year for around $60,000, according to the Clark County’s Auditor’s Office. He was soon selling furniture again. The store currently has four employees.
He rehired some of his father’s former employees, including Richard McDonaldson, who helped build furniture at the store for 25 years.
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For McDonaldson, Jim Miller’s death and the closing of the store marked the end of an era. However, his hiatus from the store did not last long.
“It felt terrible. I loved that old man and I loved working with him,” he said of the original store’s closing in the January of 2017.
Now, the store makes on average 40 pieces of furniture a month. Business has picked up and orders are being churned out faster, usually taking on average four to six weeks. Jeff Miller hopes to open up the second story of the store next year and also plans on hiring three more employees.
As the third anniversary of his father’s death approaches, Jeff said he felt it was a good time to do an official grand reopening of the store.
“What we offer is unique to this area,”he said. “People can come and pick out a fabric or a style. They can have it built the way they want. They can watch it being made.”
By the numbers:
1972: The year Jim Miller Furniture opened its doors in Springfield.
Oct. 1: When the store will hold its official grand reopening.
40: Number of pieces of furniture made at the store in a month.
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