Furniture, crafts, gifts come full circle at Vandergrift store

Editor’s note: Building the Valley tells stories of businesses big and small and the employees who make them special. If you know of any standout employees, bosses or companies with a great story to tell, contact reporter Madasyn Czebiniak at mczebiniak@tribweb.com.

At Full Circle Furniture & Gifts in Vandergrift, wood harvested from a local barn or wood pallets is repurposed and made into a mirror frame or inset with metalwork to hold wine bottles.

Wood scraps are sanded and polished into toys smooth enough for a baby’s touch.

Recycling building materials and vintage furniture isn’t anything new. But showcasing and selling the new furniture, home accessories and gift items by a number of local artists in one storefront isn’t common in the Alle-Kiski Valley.

Still rarer, the woman who started it grew up in Vandergrift and Apollo and boomeranged via Sweden after a sustainability tour in 2002.

“It changed my life,” Cynthia Contie, a former resident of Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, said of her visit to Sweden.

Contie moved back to Vandergrift in 2004 and was a founding member of the Vandergrift Improvement Program, which, among other things, promotes sustainable development projects throughout the town.

She found another Alle-Kiski ex-pat who had moved to Colorado and, together, invested in the building at 140 Grant Ave., formerly a clothing shop, for the Full Circle store, which she opened in June 2017.

Pieces and artists just followed, according Contie.

The shop is stocked with lots of odd items, including mirrors, shelves, dressers, cutting boards shaped like the Keystone state, wine racks, original artwork and jewelry and some clothing. The shop is more eclectic and gallery-like rather than an antique or second-hand store.

The most unusual item is a mold from U.S. Steel turned into a table. The writing identifying the mold number and other specifics is prominent on a sheet of steel sitting on casters with legs supporting a clear glass top.

Full Circle features work from about 20 local artists. At first, hand-crafted items were featured. That morphed into repurposed furniture and home decor, a natural evolution given Contie’s interests.

There are items of local interest such as hand-crafted toys by Vandergrift Councilman Jim Rametta. He works with wood scraps, smoothing and polishing the wood into vintage-looking cars and children’s toys.

One of the artists, Vicki Myers of Kiski Township, turns cedar chests into portable offices and paints scenes on old furniture. She finds the often discarded artifacts in local second-hand stores or from friends and relatives with unwanted old furniture.

“When I first walked in the door, I felt at home here,” said Myers, who now helps to manage the shop.

It’s all about the shape and character of the furniture that determines if it’s worthwhile to craft it into a new piece, she said.

Myers, who will soon retire from her job as a human resources manager at Cook Medical, has been nurturing her creative side in preparation for retirement. She also wanted to give back, donating the proceeds of her repurposed tables and cedar chests to local nonprofits such as Kiddies’ Korner, a nonprofit preschool in Apollo, and HAVIN, a women’s shelter in Kittanning.

Although the store is open only from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, Contie envisions expanded hours as some new downtown Vandergrift developments are the works, including a coffee shop in the Full Circle building.