“The only thing that I wouldn't change, or that I'm completely happy with making, is our daughter,” quipped Nick English, a furniture maker in Royalton, owner of Petite & English with his wife Erin (and of course their daughter, Pepper).
Educated at Boston’s Wentworth Institute of Technology and the North Bennet Street School, English initially trained as an architect, but soon found that “the time between conception and built form was a little too long for me.” But when he interned at an interior design firm, he said, “I got really interested in furniture, mainly because the time between an idea in built form shrunk considerably to where I can very quickly go from a sketch or an idea and start working it. And within a couple of hours, it starts taking shape.”
After school, English waited tables in Boston and did some production scale furniture making, but then, in 2018, he and Erin (the couple met at Wentworth) moved up to Vermont. Erin had graphic design job at Simon Pearce, and Nick waited tables there, while renting out shop space from Charlie Shackleton (at ShackletonThomas, the fine furniture maker in Bridgewater).
When the pandemic hit, everything changed. “Everyone at the restaurant got laid off,” English said, “and I just kind of leaned into furniture full-time. And for most of 2020 I was doing my own thing… I had that whole shop [at ShackletonThomas] to myself for the better part of four or five months, and that's where we came up with the name and got the business going.”
Petite & English began a successful business offering bespoke and built-to-order furniture that is simple and elegant, largely inspired by the Shakers – meaning their design ethos, not their take on family issues.
“I love everything about the Shakers,” English said. “But the one thing they got wrong is that they were celibate… It seems like it was big oversight to not procreate, because I think they were ahead of their time. They were progressive and anti-slavery back in the 1800s, and anti-war, super innovative with inventions… They were really making the most out of very little.”
When the economy began to open up again, English was not only making furniture for his own clients, but also got hired on part time at ShackletonThomas.
But then, ironically, the procreation thing led to a big shift for Petite & English. In January 2024, Nick and Erin had their daughter, Pepper, and simple economics kicked in. “The cost of daycare and also the availability of daycare around here,” English said, “would cancel out one of our incomes entirely.” So the couple decided Nick would become a full-time dad while also finding a way to finagle doing Petite & English’s furniture making in a different way.
“I was working, probably 24 hours a week working for Shackleton Thomas, building their furniture,” Nick said. “And then at five o'clock I switched over to my stuff and worked until nine. And then I would go in either on Saturday or Sunday and do my own thing.” Parenthood, totally changed that: “now I am watching her all day and I'm thinking about what I can do for the two hours after she falls asleep, before I need to get to sleep again. So I can then wake up and do it all over again.”
To accommodate the new arrangement, Nick renovated the apartment next to their own into what they assert is “Vermont’s tiniest wood shop.” It measures about 200 square feet, and the size determines the type of work Nick can do.
He now focuses mainly on smaller, home accent pieces like candle holders or serving trays, but also single chairs or smaller desks. His most popular piece, he said “is probably the desk... It's like a Shaker style, very simple, two drawers, tapered legs.” Most of his work comes from referrals from the Guild of Vermont Furniture Makers and, he says, “people seeing a desk or a table and wanting a slight modification on it.”
He holds up a few semi-finished table legs: “I worked on these four legs yesterday while she was taking a nap.”
What does Nick love most about being a maker? The same thing that moved him from architecture to furniture: “I love going from concept to built form. I still get giddy when I have a project that I've designed or I'm about to get going on. And you start board flipping and finding the pieces and the rough lumber and start making sawdust, chopping things up, planing things. I still love that process, and I love when you have parts and you've worked out joinery, and then you start working in three dimensions and you can turn it over and see how it looks and walk around it. I still love that.”
Ironically, though, “the enjoyment spikes at the beginning,” English said, “and then, as the project goes along, it comes back down to earth. By the time it's done and I'm dropping it off to a client… everything it is kind of like, ‘nah, it's fine.’ But I think that's any artist or creative. Well, you're always thinking about the next thing.”
