By Dawn Schuett
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN 

MILLVILLE -- Pete Wagner is in his workshop at 9:30 a.m., surrounded by stacks of boards, a large assortment of tools and the smell of sawdust, when a rooster outside crows. It's an unnecessary wake-up call for a man who is out of bed before sunrise, tending to his farm or his craft as a cabinetmaker.

He raises crops and beef cattle on 300 acres in Wabasha County near Millville. The land is also a local source of raw materials for his cabinet-making business, a trade he taught himself nearly 30 years ago. Wagner, 50, started farming after high school and became a cabinet maker to supplement his income.

"Farming, my parents said, would never pay for itself," Wagner said.

Wagner's supply of cherry, oak, maple and walnut comes mostly from wind-damaged or fallen trees on his farm and property owned by family members in the area.

Harvesting those trees requires a lot of work on Wagner's part and a significant investment in logging equipment, but it's better than the alternative, he said.

"It's a shame to let them out there and rot," said Wagner, who estimates that he's planted 10,000 to 20,000 trees to replace what's been salvaged.

At his busiest three to four years ago, Wagner was doing cabinets for one kitchen a month. In all of 2008, he did cabinetry for only two kitchens. He also makes bathroom vanities, entertainment centers, gun cases and cabinets for laundry rooms.

The pace of new home construction had to slow down eventually, Wagner said, and it affected cabinet makers and other trades.

"I knew it was going to come," he said. "I just didn't want to see it."

In the first three months of 2009, Wagner worked on two orders for kitchen cabinets. If more jobs follow, he's well prepared. Wagner, who has a wood-drying kiln on-site, has enough wood in storage to make cabinets for 50 kitchens.

Many of his customers live within 35 to 40 miles of Millville. Most often, projects are envisioned by women who want their dream kitchen and have collected pictures of stylish kitchens for 10 years.

"Pretty much, if they can find it in a book, I can generally make it," Wagner said.

Other customers, he said, "don't know what they want until they see it."

Once the design is drawn, the bid is accepted and measurements are taken. Wagner builds the cabinets in the workshop on his farm. He'll work on a project 10 to 15 hours a day, cutting, assembling and finishing cabinets to be ready for installation in three to four weeks.

"I get absorbed in it all day long," Wagner said. "You just start from ground zero on a lot of it. It always works out."

Not wanting any wood to go to waste, Wagner gives the scraps to his father, Leo Wagner, to carve.

People may rule out custom cabinetry because of the price, assuming it will be too expensive. But it is affordable, Wagner said, adding that his custom cabinetry can beat the price of high-end stock cabinetry at home improvement retailers.

His customers have followed the trends in cabinet finishes and designs. Darker finishes are popular again today along with cleaner, more contemporary cabinet designs, Wagner said. Customers want more roll-out shelving as a matter of convenience and many choose granite countertops for a high-end look to complement the cabinetry.

Dawn Schuett is a Farmington freelance writer.

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