The art of crafting isn’t dying down anytime soon for Amanda Peppard and her customers at Suite Pieces in Huntington Station. Located on New York Avenue, the grey building with it’s enticing yellow doors draws in customers looking to buy some of Peppard’s fabulous vintage furniture pieces or to take a workshop with Peppard to learn how to design their own materials. The store is relatively new and after a rough start in 2012, Peppard has nothing but positive words to say about her growing business and where she sees it going in the future.

 

This sofa made by Peppard, can be found at the Huntington location in a corner that allows customers to sit and flip through various design books and magazines to inspire them.  

Owner, Peppard, said her love for design and vintage pieces runs in the bloodline.

“I came home from the hospital as a baby in a 1961 Chevy Impala,” Peppard said.

Despite her passion for design, Peppard went to school to become a math teacher. Following college she worked for corporate America but instead of doing work when she was supposed to, she found herself looking on design blogs. She left her corporate job with an innate need to design.

“I always wanted to own a business but I didn’t just want to be an interior designer.”

Suite Pieces combines all of Amanda’s passions into one store.

The Huntington store which opened in 2012 was the first Suite Pieces shop to open. Two years later, Peppard opened a store in Brooklyn. The opening of the Huntington location wasn’t easy Peppard recalled, but two years later, she speaks proudly of her business and what makes it so unique from any other vintage store.

“Not only do we sell supplies for do it yourself vintage projects but we’ll also teach you how to do your own projects or how we did our furniture pieces which is something other stores won’t show you.”

What makes Suite Pieces unique is the amazing workshops and events they offer. At these workshops, people aren’t just listening to instructions, they’re getting hands on experience and actually working on their own projects. The workshops and events attract a largely female group and helps foster a community feel where women are interacting and sharing their ideas with each other. The most popular workshop offered at the Huntington Station location and also Peppard’s favorite workshop to teach is the four hour, Intro to Chalk Paint Workshop.

She also loves hosting events where they pick an interesting craft off of Pintrest and work on it.

“Everybody gets to do something different while still working on the same project. We recently picked a craft off Pintrest where we designed monogram letters with burlap bows.”

Chalk Paint, Peppard’s favorite paint and the theme of her favorite class is one of the highlights of the Suite Pieces stores. Peppard became the first person on Long Island to start selling the specialty paint.Other workshops include “Weak to Chic” which is the most popular workshop offered at the Brooklyn location. Peppard said that there are definitely differences between the two locations.

“The Brooklyn location is scaled down compared to Huntington. Brooklyn has a focus on mid century and industrial design while Huntington is more traditional, shabby, and frilly. The Brooklyn location attracts young professionals while Huntington attracts families.”

In the future, Peppard hopes to see Suite Pieces expand to other locations on Long Island such as the South Shore or out East, as well as to Queens and someday, Manhattan. In addition to expanding, she hopes to see Suite Pieces as its own furniture brand with a vintage flare.

In addition to Chalk Paint, Suite Pieces also sells Milk Paint
If you go:
Suite Pieces
1038 New York Ave.
Huntington Station, NY 11746
631-560-9759
To sign up for workshops: http://suitepieces.com/workshops/

Pulse Insider is featuring small business owners from a different Long Island neighborhood once a week—and we’d love to know about your favorite small business. Tells us about your town’s best small businesses and we might feature them in an upcoming story.