Builder Spotlight: Nisley Cabinet 

Introducing our first builder for our Builder Spotlight series: Nisley Cabinet!

Specializing in bedroom and kitchen islands, Nisley is known for their solid value, personability, and their huge array of styles and options to choose from. Hubbingtons has worked with Nisley for close to 15 years now, bringing you beautiful handcrafted American made furniture.

With 28 employees, working  9 ½ hour days 5 days a week, you can see the quality and hard work that goes into their company. Based in Millersburg, Ohio it was David Nisley Sr. who built the first shop in 1980 doing contracting work for a company based in Cleveland. In the year 2000 he left that deal and developed his own customer base. Nisley quickly grew a strong presence in the Amish community and they now have customers spread out from East to West! 

When David Nisley Sr. passed, 4 of his sons took over the company in 2016. After working in farming and agriculture for 8 years in between, Emanuel Nisley would consider himself the general manager these days, working alongside his brothers. I had the opportunity to interview him last week about the background of the company, but I also had some other questions I was curious about that maybe you’ve wondered about too. Beyond the basics, what else really goes into crafting furniture in the Amish community? I asked him some questions: 

Molly: I was looking through your catalog and you do mostly bedrooms and kitchen islands? Is that what the company started out making first?

Emanuel: Yes those are the two product lines. They’ve done a variety of stuff through the years, they’ve done hutches and entertainment for a number of years, we actually got out of entertainment back in 2020. Currently we’re just doing bedrooms and kitchen islands. Occasionally we’ve done a big commercial job if one comes our way but that’s very seldom. 

Molly: How do you come up with new ideas or designs? 

Emanuel: Well, we have Peter! (owner of Hubbingtons!) (laughter)

Molly: (laughter) He tells you what the customers want?

Emanuel: Yes we have our sales reps to tell us what people would be looking for. We try to get our ideas from our sales reps that are out on the road, they usually send us a general idea of what they are looking for and we create it with what we think looks good and run it by them and they approve it. 

Molly: Is there anything new or that stands out right now?

Emanuel: Are you familiar with our product line, the Manhattan collection with reclaimed barn wood tops? That does real well in the western states. There’s a couple stores that do real well with that.

Molly: And are there any wood types that are popular right now?

Emanuel: I would say brown maple and rustic hickory.

Molly: Do you ever take any time off for any holidays?

Emanuel: Yes we do Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day, there are a few more (laughter) Easter, Good Friday, Ascension Day. It would be about 6 days and a lot of times we’ll take a few more days for the Christmas holiday. 

Molly: Do you celebrate a second Christmas?

Emanuel: Yes that would be January 6th, Old Christmas, that is one holiday I don’t think the English celebrate.

Molly: Do you ever do anything with your employees for some time off, when all the employees would get together? 

Emanuel: Yes we normally do a company picnic, it would be in the evening where we would play ball or something. We have done a day trip but it’s not every year. We have taken them to a boys camp in the past for something different.  

Molly: Could you tell me a little bit more about the equipment you use? I’ve heard it’s a misconception that you don’t use any power tools. Do you have any CNC machines?

Emanuel: We don’t personally have any CNC machines, we do buy some parts, like bed parts that are made by CNC. We do run a diesel and hydraulics is our power for the most part, some of our equipment is on generator power too.

Molly: Peter told me you used to have to use telephone booths to make calls? Is it still that way, are you using a cell phone to talk with me right now?

Emanuel: Well it’s a landline but yes it is in my office now. 

Molly: What other restrictions does your church have on electronics and technology?

Emanuel: We would not use internet, we have, what do you call them, word processors. I mean I guess it’s kind of like, if you walked into my office you would say I have a computer, but it’s not connected to the internet.

Molly: Okay one last question, if I lived in Holmes County, would you hire someone like me to work for you or do you only pretty much hire people in your Amish community?

Emanuel: (laughter) Well right now we could use someone like you to run our office. But yea I mean all of our workers would be in our church group. Maybe we would hire outside of our community but we haven’t so far. For trucking, we actually have a local guy come in. Our warehouse isn’t very big and so we have him clean the dock everyday and have it brought up to a different warehouse. We’re kind of off the beaten path, maybe 10 miles south of where the main businesses are. It’s kind of a service to the trucking company so they don’t have to drive all the way down here. We invoice when it leaves our shop so we can start the invoicing process. But yes, he wouldn’t really be an “employee” of ours. He would be a local trucker that we hired to do that. 

So why buy from Nisley? Emanuel wanted to reiterate that they don’t want to brag, but that they do focus really hard on quality and service. Also, unlike many in the furniture business, they stick to their shipment dates. “When we write up orders and do an order confirmation, we send it to the customer with the estimated ship date and we really go hard to meet those dates.” he told me. They don’t write 6 weeks and send it in 10. Of course things come up, but Nisley has always been flexible with helping us out on any issues we have. 

For years now, they have always been a very well run and personable company. With their extensive product line and excellent service you are sure to find something you like. Whether you are looking for a new bedroom set or kitchen island, be sure to ask our sales reps about Nisley next time you are shopping at Hubbingtons!