By Mary Owen
Splintered owners Joda Washington and Linda Scott make everything in their downtown Stayton store themselves.
“My mom is my business partner in this journey, and I couldn’t do it without her,” said Joda about Linda. “We search all over for good quality wood pieces and then give them a new life with some creativity, sandpaper, paint and a paint brush.”
Joda builds, cuts, sands, stains, paints and frames all the signs while Linda restores and paints all the furniture.
“We do paint customer owned pieces as well, so if you have an old piece you love, we are happy to help update the look of it for you,” Joda said. “We will also find you a special item if we don’t have what you’re looking for.”
The idea of creating wood signs took root when Joda went through a “very nasty divorce” in 2016.
“I was short a few hundred dollars of making ends meet while I was managing a UPS store in Phoenix,” she said. “I decided I needed a hobby that I could make a little bit of extra money doing and focus myself in a healthy way. I taught myself how to make wood signs by breaking apart pallets we had at my UPS store and realized it was a great way to de-stress, not just making a little extra money but therapeutic almost.”
Within a few months, Joda said she was making more money selling signs than at her day job.
“[A]fter 38 years of wanting to leave Arizona to live somewhere with seasons, I convinced my mom and daughter to pick up our lives and move to Oregon,” she said.
Six weeks later, they were Oregon residents. Joda continued to work for UPS for the first few months while still painting signs late in the night after work, often pulling all-nighters to fill orders with her 22-year-old daughter, Brittany Pratton. Not a fan of Oregon’s cold winters, Pratton has since moved to California in search of warmer weather.
“I was then laid off and decided it was time to just focus on growing my little company and give it all I could,” Joda said. “We started with a small vendor space in a few other stores and just didn’t find the right fit for us.”
Joda then branched out into selling on Etsy and Amazon Handmade within a few months, and needing a company name, took her daughter’s suggestion to use Splintered.
“Partially because I get so splintered building signs, but mainly because I myself was splintered and put myself back together by building this little company,” she said. Joda said when she found what they called “the little store in Stayton,” she knew immediately she wanted it.
“The sense of community here is something I have never experienced, and I’m honored to be so welcomed into it,” she said.
“For the last six months, we had a smaller location on Ida Street and did well there. When this new opportunity became available on Third Avenue, it gave us the opportunity to grow so we jumped at the chance.”
Joda called the community response to the new location “overwhelmingly positive.”
“We’ve been told we are such an asset to our town,” she said. Future plans for their new location include hosting workshops by the end of March, Joda said, “where people will come have a glass of wine and/or a cup of coffee, and paint their own sign.”
“Right now we plan to hose two classes a week to start, ranging from six to 15 people,” she said.
Her favorite part of what she does is being involved in people’s special life moments – making signs for weddings, anniversaries, memorials and more.
“Words that are from the heart and truly touch other people’s hearts,” Joda said. “We tend to make the gifts that get tears.
“I’m truly honored to be part of those moments for people,” she added. “I hope to expand that by hosting workshops that turn into date nights, girls night out, company parties, family fun nights and such that are memories people will look back on for years to come with a smile when looking at what they created.”
Joda sells signs from Bible verses all the way to “a secret cabinet under the stairs with some swear word signs.”
In addition to wood signs and furniture, home decor items such as wood trays, candles, coat racks, wood-framed mirrors, blanket ladders and “a few other odds and ends” can be found at Splintered, Joda said. “I make all these items in my woodshop as well.”
Splintered Wood Designs held its official opening at 239 N Third Ave. in February. Items can also be seen at SplinteredWoodShop.etsy.com and on Facebook and Instagram.
