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New business handcrafts wood furniture

Staff photo by Gage Cureton Harold Enamorado, carpenter and co-owner of Cala Contemporary Woodwork, cuts a piece of wood on his table saw in the business’s workshop in New Ulm. Cala Contemporary Woodwork offers hand-crafted furniture and custom designs.

NEW ULM — Cala Complementary Woodwork, 718 N. Broadway St., is a small family-run business offering handcrafted wood furniture.

Owners Harold Enamorado, carpenter, and wife Jayme, marketing manager, said they hope to build a business that will remind people that furniture can be more functional by bringing more warmth and character into homes.

“Our goal is to provide really good-quality furniture at affordable prices,” Harold said. “We want to give people the opportunity to buy furniture that they will see in a magazine but priced at an IKEA price.”

Working out of a small-personalized shop, Cala Complementary Woodwork mills salvaged trees from local sources. Harold said 90 percent of the building materials comes from recycled wood. All wood boards are kiln dried in the shop with total step-by-step supervision.

Along with offering their own designs, Cala also takes custom orders from clients who have special orders in mind. The business prepares a digital 3D model of the final product to provide clients with a better idea of how the product is going to look when it’s completed.

“I think my business is two areas,” Harold said. “One, there is the custom side. If you want something, I’ll build it for you. But then I also have my own designs that I build and put up for sale.”

Harold, a designer and spatial thinker by trade, holds a master’s degree in architecture and is employed with an architecture firm in the Twin Cities.

Born in raised in Honduras, he spent much of his childhood working in his father’s furniture factory. Originally a welder, Harold began learning woodworking skills from other factory workers and picked up the skills of the trade.

After earning his degree in Costa Rica, Harold married Jayme and the new family moved to Minnesota.

One day, their son found an old piece of lumber in the woods and brought it to Harold’s attention. They decided to use it to craft a coffee table and began constructing it by hand.

“At that point I didn’t have any tools,” Harold said. “So, planing that thing by hand took me about a month.”

Harold put the coffee table up for sale, and within a week it was sold. He then started making other furniture and began bringing it to his workplace in the Twin Cities. His colleagues enjoyed his craftsmanship and started putting in orders for their own furniture.

After the orders started rolling in, Harold and Jayme realized they could offer custom furniture to a wider array of clients and began acquiring more tools and equipment.

Harold said he enjoys working in architecture but feels the woodworking business helps him express his creativity. He said the woodworking business allows him to work face to face with clients.

“In my case, with the shop, it’s just me and the client,” he said, “It’s a really good feeling to be involved with interior design. It’s a complementary art for the architectural side.”

With special attention to the organic characteristics and features of natural wood, Cala Complementary Woodwork offers a variety of products with the option to build custom furniture.

Harold said orders typically take four to five weeks to design, furnish and complete.

For more information on Cala, visit https://www.calamn.com/.

Gage Cureton can be emailed at gcureton@nujournal.com.

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