Chatsworth furniture store that was ‘good for the community’ is going out of business (with VIDEO)

Published 2:42 pm Sunday, September 16, 2018

CHATSWORTH — Among the showroom of beds, sofas, tables and other furniture sits a brown leather recliner with the words “sold Phillips” hanging off the price tag.

David Phillips of Crandall soon arrives to claim the last piece of furniture he’ll buy at Discovery Home Furnishings. After 31 years in business, the Chatsworth store is closing on Monday, Sept. 24. Owners Dan and Katie Sluder said it’s time to retire.

“We started in 1987 down the street at the old Mullinax Ford building,” Dan Sluder said. “We rented the front half of the building in the beginning and eventually all of it.”

The store has been at 105 Murray Plaza for the past 17 years. Phillips said he’s been a customer on and off for 15 years and is sad to see the store close. Phillips said he lost count of what he’s purchased over the years, but remembers buying a dining room set and bar stools.

“Dan has been good to the community and the store was good for the community,” he said. “They always had good, quality furniture.”

Dan Sluder, 68, a Chatsworth native, said when they announced the retirement sale in July many people came to the store to congratulate them.

“They told us how much they appreciated us through the years,” he said. “I was kind of blown away. It’s been really special. We’re going to miss those folks.”

Katie Sluder, 62, said she will also miss the customers.

“We’ve had some good customers and had generations buy from us,” she said. “The business has been good to us, but it’s been rough, too.”

Katie Sluder said when the recession hit in the mid-2000s it was “rough on the furniture business” because it wasn’t a necessity to buy.

“We toughed it out though” she said.

Katie Sluder said she also remembers the good times and “really loyal customers.”

“There are some people who bought every piece of their furniture from us,” she said. “It’s great and when it was time to replace it they came back.”

Dan Sluder said it’s time to go and when his son Josh Sluder left the company in the spring that was more confirmation. The couple also has a daughter, Shalina Jackson, and four grandchildren.

“It also worked out someone wanted to buy our building,” he said.

Stars of Grace Performance Academy, a dance and gymnastic school, is moving in.

“They needed a larger facility so that got the ball rolling,” he said. “That’s when we got serious about retiring.”

Dan Sluder said they hired Wahlquist Management Corp., a furnishings promotion and liquidation firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, to help with their final days. The store is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“They run going out of business and retirement sales and bring associates to help sell,” he said.

Katie Sluder said items will get “knocked down a little more.”

“There will be things that say ‘final days’ and that’s usually as low as we can get,” she said.

The Sluders have been married 36 years and plan to travel once they retire.

“We are probably the exception to the rule, as far as married couples go,” Dan Sluder said. “We got married and never had a day or night apart.”