Furniture restored with patience, skill, and eighty years of know-how.

A furniture company that started with doll-sized furniture.

A.E. Shutt with the original delivery truck
images/about-shop.jpg

Doll Furniture Company was founded in 1944 by Andrew E. "A.E." Shutt as a full furniture refinishing shop — also building children's and doll-sized pieces, which gave the company its name. His wife Berzie Shutt stood alongside him in the business. A.E. had been running a painting and wallpapering business in Bloomington-Normal, but when World War II drew away his manpower, he turned to woodworking and never looked back.

He was a tireless inventor — credited among the early designers of the automobile turn signal and, later, the creator of our own Strip-o-lator, Sand-o-lator, and Dewarp-o-lator machines. The original shop was on Oak Street in Normal, out behind the family residence. By 1951 we have surviving Pantagraph ads specifically for the refinishing work — "Let us rebuild and refinish your furniture" — and that work has been the heart of the shop ever since: adult furniture refinishing, repair, and full antique restoration.

Nancy's hand-painted shop sign

A.E. ran Doll Furniture for more than three decades, working at the bench into the 1970s. He passed away in May 1975, and his son David Shutt stepped in to carry the work forward alongside his wife Nancy Shutt — the two had been married since August 31, 1963, and Nancy had been part of the Doll Furniture family for more than a decade by the time the second generation took over. A painter and avid reader, Nancy's artistic touch became part of the shop itself. The hand-painted "Furniture Stripping Refinishing" sign that still hangs today was Nancy's work. Nancy was also a huge Elvis Presley fan — and once got to meet him in person. She was about 13 or 14 when her family visited Graceland; the gate was just starting to be constructed at the time, and Nancy's father Ted Defenbaugh walked up and spoke to Elvis's father, Vernon Presley. Vernon asked if they'd like to meet Elvis, and walked them back to where he was — out on a red tractor. Elvis came over, asked Nancy if she'd like a picture with him, and posed for one. The photo stayed a treasured family keepsake the rest of her life. Nancy's parents, Ted and Thelma Defenbaugh, raised her and her brother Jim in central Illinois; Thelma was a registered nurse — a quiet thread that would run through to a third generation. Berzie Shutt — A.E.'s wife — remained involved in the business throughout, continuing to work at the shop into the 1980s before her passing in January 1988 — more than forty years after she helped found the company alongside A.E. For years Doll Furniture operated out of two separate shops located in Normal, IL — one on Linden Street where the Strip-o-lator machines were built, and one on Oak Street where refinishing and woodwork happened. In 1983 David and Nancy purchased the building at 400 North Beech Street and consolidated both sides of the business under one roof, where we've been ever since.

Shop building

After more than seventy years in business and three generations of the same family at the bench, the name has stayed. The second generation — David Shutt (born 15 October 1940, the youngest of nine children) and his wife Nancy (14 January 1944 – 31 October 2023) — carried the shop forward for decades. David started in the shop as a boy of five — standing on a wooden box to reach the lathe — and never left. A gifted custom furniture builder in his own right, he personally built the Strip-o-lator machines the company sold nationwide, crafted countless custom tables, desks, chairs, and one-of-a-kind pieces for customers who couldn't find what they needed anywhere else, ran sales of our new solid oak furniture line in the 1990s (Robinson Furniture and Bark River Collection — both American-made, with 15-year warranties), and handled every furniture repair that came through the door. Doll Furniture only ever sold furniture the family was proud to put their name on — solid wood, well built, made to last. One of David's signature sales moves: he'd flip a chair upside down on the showroom floor and stand on top of it to prove how strong it was. (It always held.)

Jeff Shutt loading the Strip-o-lator, 1994
images/jeff-shutt-loading-stripolator-1994.jpg

David and Nancy raised three children. Their oldest, Jeanne (now Jeanne Graves), raised her own children first — then went back to school later in life to follow in her grandmother Thelma's footsteps. She earned her nursing credentials and worked as a registered nurse before retiring in 2026. Like her mother Nancy, Jeanne is an artist, and now spends much of her time with her grandchildren. The two boys came up working alongside their father at the shop: James joined the shop full-time in May 1988, right after graduation, and his younger brother Jeff joined full-time in May 1991, also right after graduating — the three of them worked together at the bench for years, with James focused on furniture refinishing and Jeff handling stripping and refinishing alongside the U-Haul side after it launched in 1996. Jeff stayed with the family business until 2019, when he moved on to become a regional manager for U-Haul corporate. (As family lore has it, James nearly made three generations share a birthday: Nancy and her father Ted Defenbaugh were both born on January 14th — James held out until January 15th. Nancy always blamed his stubborn streak.) We lost Nancy in October 2023. David retired in 2025 after more than five decades at the bench. Today James Shutt runs the shop on a daily basis, with his wife Brooke supporting him in the business and lending a hand when an extra set of hands is needed. Brooke is an artist in her own right — she can spend hours a day drawing and painting. James shares the family love of art too — he paints in acrylic and oil when he can find the time, and has finished a handful of paintings in the past few years — serving customers throughout Central Illinois and, thanks to loyal clients, coast to coast across the United States. James has worked in furniture refinishing full-time since 1988, personally handles every piece that comes through the shop today, and has managed all of the company's bookkeeping and accounting the whole time. Carrying a bit of his grandfather's inventor streak into the modern era, he also builds websites and custom software on the side, helping local and out-of-state businesses with their marketing.

A note for our customers: James is the last of the Shutt family to run Doll Furniture Company. After more than eighty years and three generations, the shop doesn't have a fourth generation waiting in the wings — which makes every piece that comes through the door these days a little more meaningful. We're still here, still doing the work, and still grateful for every customer who trusts us with a family heirloom or a favorite piece.

Stripping, sanding, staining, custom color matching, chair caning, in-shop touch-ups, minor repairs, insurance and moving damage inspections — plus upholstery and custom woodworking through our trusted partners. If it's made of wood and it needs saving, we'd like to take a look at it.