Hallman Woodworking Opens Showroom Downtown

Just three years ago, Matthew Hallman was working from a garage with his brother-in-law’s best friend, learning how to make furniture on their own. Now he has three fulltime employees working in a shop larger than some homes and is opening a showroom on Main Street to introduce people to the quality of furniture his team is creating. Hallman found the right opportunity at the right time to open a showroom in the back of The People’s Goods with an entrance on 542 SE Main Street. He renovated the whole space, including removing the Roseburg Book and Stationary sign. It’s in storage, waiting for the right place and time to be put on display. The room is a place for Hallman to show off pieces his team is proud of and to introduce people to the possibilities for custom wood furniture in Southwestern Oregon. “It’s almost like a physical portfolio of our stuff,” Hallman said. “When you buy a piece of furniture from me, I want it to of the highest level of quality, and your experience with me to be a high level of quality. I want to get to a point where people see a piece of high-end furniture and assume I’m the one who made it.” Hallman wants to raise the bar for wood furniture and cabinetry for himself and other woodworkers in the area at a cost that will also pull people away from “landfill furniture.” Hallman is passionate about quality wood products and building products with the local environment in mind. “We need to get away from this disposable, quick and fast and cheap mentality of consumables,” Hallman said. “That means a lot of different things, we just need to start thinking about things like, long-term, not just build stuff for a year.” Hallman has been building furniture his whole life as a hobby and used it as a way to take a break for his mental health when he was working as a firefighter and an EMT. “2015 and 2016 ran out like a ton of brutal calls, including the UCC shooting, which was a really hard year mentally for me,” Hallman said. “I needed a healthy outlet, so I got back in the woodshop. I always had table saws and stuff to do little projects. There’s something about doing furniture that’s just very pure to me. It’s romanced in a way. Even on my days off, when there’s nobody in here, I just like to come out here and just decompress.” He did little jobs that could fit in his garage, including making furniture for My Coffee. The owner of the coffee shop, Heidi Underwood, asked Hallman to build some furniture and he agreed. Later, he came in, was not satisfied with the quality anymore, and built all new furniture for her. After moving and building a woodshop, he decided to pursue woodworking as a fulltime job in 2017. He kept working fulltime as an EMT and hired his brother-in-law's friend, Trenton Morrow. “We barely had enough money for Trenton to drive to and from the shop and pay him some food.” They spent two years just getting enough work to justify Hallman leaving the ambulance job and to pay both of them. In the last year, he doubled the workforce, opened a showroom, and is working to keep up with all of the jobs they have lined up. Now they have upgraded their tools and moved toward automation for the tasks where automation makes sense so that they can make quality furniture at an attainable price. One of the people Hallman hired is a girl, which made Hallman a bit nervous. “Like, would she work out, would she fit in? I just didn’t know how that was going to go. I’m not going to lie, it was intimidating,” Hallman said. “Best thing we ever did. Complements to Laura Hines.” Laura said people sometimes don’t acknowledge her at all, but she loves the work and the team loves working with her. Hallman is having a grand opening for the showroom on Friday at 5 p.m. with wine tasting poured by the Secret Wine Society, and hors d'oeuvres provided by Andrea Pias. He will also be showcasing Stem Lane Interior Design and Built by Steel.