Jensen gives discarded furniture new life

Angie Jensen of Manson started refinishing furniture for herself more than four years ago.
At the time, Jensen was a stay at- home mom, but the interior design degree she had earned gave her the knowledge to tackle her first furniture project, stripping, painting and decorating a dresser for one of her three boys. She picked a comics motif, working comics images into the finish.
“I would just pull the furniture outside and let (my youngest son) play,” Jensen said.
Hints of those early days remain in her workshop – shelves of well-loved and much-used dump trucks sit alongside her refinishing tools. These days, her boys are older – one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school. They still help some, especially with moving the furniture. And her youngest loves demolition work.
Any drawers she isn’t going to reuse, he gets to smash.
The combination of working with her hands and being outside was just right, she said.
“To me, that clears my head,” she said. “It’s relaxing to me.”
These days, Jensen, who also now works part-time for Manson Northwest Webster Schools, stays busy with custom orders and the occasional dresser or table that she comes across. More often than not, someone will call her and ask if she’s interested in a piece of furniture they are hoping to sell.
Read more in the January 24 edition.