By David Benda (Contact)
Blemished, splintered, sagging, ripped or stained.

Jessica Dill and her crew at American Furniture Co. make a habit of bringing even the most dilapidated sofa or dining room table back to life.

Take a walk around Dill’s shop on Twin View Boulevard in north Redding and you’ll find furniture in various stages of rebirth.


Maybe Dill’s best market pitch is her before-and-after photo album that sits on a table in the front of the business.

“Most of the people that contact us are the ones who like the style or size and they can’t find exactly what they’re looking for or the piece has some sort of sentimental value,” said Dill, whose parents bought the Redding business in 1974, two years after it opened.

In the beginning, American Furniture Co. was nothing more than a strip tank off Locust Street in downtown Redding. Customers would bring in their furniture to have it refinished.

When Rod Dill and Candy Woodson, Jessica’s parents, purchased the business, they started expanding into all aspects of furniture refurbishing.

Rod Dill, who has moved out of the area, was a traveling pharmaceutical salesman before he went into the furniture business.

Jessica Dill, 35, who practically grew up watching her parents’ business, said her father was weary of traveling. She recalls a day — she was still in diapers — when he was loading up his car for another business trip. Not wanting her father to leave again, Jessica tried to climb into the trunk so she could ride along.

That was enough for her father. Her parents bought the furniture business not long afterwards.

American Furniture Co. stayed at its downtown Redding location for more than 20 years before it moved to its present site on Twin View Boulevard in 1996.

Dill, who took over the business from her parents in 2004, has five employees, including Dan George, who’s worked for the company 10 years. George, 57, is a furniture upholsterer who moved to Redding from the San Francisco Bay area.

“I started working in factories, did some flea markets and then started working small shops,” said George, who says furniture upholsterers are a rare breed.

Some of the more common repairs American Furniture Co. does are chair re-glues, sofa frame reconstruction, replacing dresser drawers, dining room table top refinishing, and repairing china hutches.

A sofa reconstruction typically can cost $1,800 or more, which includes the fabric, Dill said.

Dill’s business has fabric lines from 14 different vendors, the largest variety north of Visalia, she said.

Much of American Furniture Co.’s business comes from repeat customers, Dill said.

“At any one time we have about 100 jobs going in the shop. We are six to eight weeks out,” said Dill, adding that her busy time is around the holidays.

American Furniture Co. also did work for the new Redding Library, refurbishing the antique rolltop desk and card catalog.

Dill said furniture refinishing businesses like hers are constantly monitored to make sure they’re compliant with air and chemical regulations.

“We keep records of chemical compound we use,” Dill said. “There is really a lot of watch-dogging that goes with it.”

Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or at dbenda@redding.com.