Menifee Furniture Designer Pivots For Holidays: Surviving And Thriving
MENIFEE, CA—A husband-and-wife team in Menifee who built their dream of creating hand-crafted custom furniture is pivoting toward creating holiday decor items to get through the holiday season. This year, you can shop locally and support their small business by purchasing hand-crafted gift items from their Facebook Marketplace store.
Meet Justina and Parish Hubbard, owners of Rustique by J&P, where they create woodwork from the heart. Patch had an opportunity to speak with this duo about selling their craft of bespoke workmanship online and across SW Riverside County.
The pair opened their sliding barn doors in 2014. Initially buoyed by the farmhouse home decor movement, their business started with her ideas and her husband’s woodworking skills and grew to serve customers in three counties.
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“We started in Norco just after we bought our first home,” she told Patch. They lived in a 902-square-foot house with a large tree in the backyard and a swing waiting for future kids to play on.
Her tastes in home decor leaned toward Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. But when she showed him an idea of a console table to purchase, Parish Hubbard knew he could build it.
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“He recreated the idea and built a dining room table, a coffee table, and more. Then, he started building for our family members and neighbors. The next thing I knew, we sold furniture online to make extra money while working.”
They began selling furniture on Facebook Marketplace to offset income. The styles have changed as the interests have bloomed from farmhouse rustic to more mid-century modern.
“I got pregnant with our first child and decided I didn’t want to return to work,” she said. With her selling online, they soon reached a point where they knew they had a real business.
“He took a leap of faith and began building furnishings, trays, and home interior items online full-time,” she said. “He left his EMT job in 2016 and never looked back. We moved to Menifee in 2019, and it’s been a huge blessing.”
At their Menifee home, Parish has a large workshop on their property. Their logo displays their roots, with the tree and its rustic backyard rope swing under which he used to work. Now, he takes their three stair-step children to the lumber yard to teach them about types of hardwood and their differences, showing how he can transform those simple boards into something useful and beautiful. Their logo is a nod to their roots and that large tree and swing.
Since then, they’ve grown their Facebook page to over 10,000 followers and constructed custom designs for local restaurants’ dining tables and hostess desks for two Thai restaurants in Temecula. They have sold countless tables, desks, and other custom furnishings for customers across Orange, Riverside, and Los Angeles County.
Still, even though they started with a hobby business that grew into a livelihood, there are times when orders get lean. For those times, they offer smaller custom charcuterie boards, cutting boards and this year, have added the holiday decor items.
“I don’t know if it’s because of the recent election or people just wanting to pare down for the holidays this year, but we got the idea to start selling more gift items as you see in our Facebook store,” she said.
Past clients asked about Esty-style charcuterie boards for Christmas, and that got Justina Hubbard thinking.
“I ask, and he builds,” she said. Using materials around the warehouse, they’ve created a stock of walnut trays with hardware handles, cutting boards, charcuterie boards, and decorative gifts.
Rustique’s holiday decor items, from the whimsical trees to the trio of wrapped block boxes, evoke Pier One, Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, or Joannes.
“The set of three white trees is simple and elegant, with its berry, pine, and twine bow, something with a Pottery Barn feel,” she said. “They’re all adorable in their own way.” They start from $18 for a set of three. The premium hardwood walnut trays range from $50 to $80 per tray, and the cutting boards, depending on size, range from $35 to $75.
“The cutting boards and trays are always popular; our clients know we create those, but the three wooden gift boxes with bows and three trees are getting a lot of interest.”
“We’re hearing from customers that instead of shopping at Hobby Lobby, they’d rather support our small business,” she said.
If you don’t see what you’re looking for, ask. “We do make special designs on request on our Facebook store. So, if you want to add to your Holiday Decor this season, purchase your loved one’s gift, or even a gift for yourself, please consider purchasing from a small, local business. It would mean the world!”
Find them at www.rustiquejandp.com, on Instagram at @rustiquebyjandp. Visit Facebook Marketplace to order. You can pick up your order from our shop in Menifee, or we serve Mission Viejo, Long Beach, and Temecula with designated pick-up locations at least once a week.
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