My Biz: This restorer takes on most any project

Owner: David Young

Company: Divine Restoration Fine Woodworking & Furniture Repair

Address: 131 Outlook Drive SW, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 540-9800

Website: www.divine-restoration.com

Elevator pitch: “It's either quality or it's not.”

CEDAR RAPIDS - David Young's 11th grade shop project wasn't a birdhouse. It was a full-sized mahogany hutch for his parents.

He completed the design, calculated the materials and labor cost estimates, and then built it - by himself. The piece now sits in is his home.

Young isn't afraid to take on any type of project.

“It doesn't matter if a project is missing parts or never had them. I can build what is needed,” he said.

His fascination with wood construction may have come via his maternal grandfather, who always was building something.

“He was the only one I knew who was always messing around with wood - building birdhouses and other stuff.”

The shop owner and craftsman has worked in the industry nearly 30 years, working for custom design shops in the Cedar Rapids area before opening his own business, Divine Restoration, in 2010, after his position with a former employer was eliminated.

“It's no fun going to work and wondering if you have a job or not. It was time to not rely on somebody else for employment,” he said.

His business model is also pretty straight forward, he noted: “I don't charge for estimates. I don't give discounts.

“I don't throw sales - I just charge my rate.”

He also does free pickup and delivery and runs the one-man restoration shop operation from a shop building that is located on his residential property.

The range of his expertise is expansive - from building theater props, which he did while working for then called Mount Mercy College, to complete restorations of antique camelback trunks or custom building leaves for dining room tables that never had any to begin with, to the circa 1885 Victor Safe that's undergoing a complete overhaul.

“The thing weighs 500 pounds, and it took 2 other guys to help me to get it up to the bench where it's been ever since it arrived,” he laughed.

The safe arrived in his shop with no interior drawers, so he built them before sending them out for pinstriping. He disassembled the lock and polished the pieces as well, and sought out a period-looking carpet remnant for the floor inside the safe.

Young takes photographs of all the projects he does - from dilapidated beginning to the sprayed, catalyzed, lacquered finish he applies.

“I don't offer five different kinds of finishes,” he explains. “I offer one good one.”

Of his line of work in general, he said: “You have the labor in the project already, why not just do it right in the first place? It's either quality or it's not.”