Coyote Cabinets Wins The Best Of The Best

WAI T SBURG -- The genesis of Brian Seagraves' interest in cabinet making and wood working goes back to high school.

When he was a junior at Nashua High School on the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, he took a shop class after getting burned out on being a drummer in the school band.

"I had no background in running power tools," he said.

But he soon learned he could be pretty meticulous with fine wood working projects that required precision.

As a senior he won an Outstanding Student award that still graces a wall his small office at Coyote Custom Cabinets & Woodworking on Bolles Road in Waitsburg.

When he landed his first job for a cabinet maker in his old home town of Montgomery, Ala., he also discovered he loved working with customers.

"I would see them get all excited like little kids at Christmas," Seagraves said about the times when he would deliver their custom-made cabinets for home remodels and other projects.

That knack for delivering products that are often beyond his customers' expectations and his generosity as a cabinet maker earned Seagraves, his wife Sonia and their construction and finishing specialist Bob Craig, the Walla Walla Union Bulletin's readers' Best Of The Best distinction in his category for the first time this year.

"When someone from the newspaper called me, I first thought they wanted me to subscribe," Seagraves said. "It's taken a while to sink in. It's exciting."

And remarkable if you consider Coyote doesn't advertise anywhere in the greater Walla Walla area, not even in the Yellow Pages. All his business, which has doubled almost every year since he started in 2006, has come from word-of-mouth referrals.

But it helps when your work is seen and appreciated. Coyote has made trophy cases for the Blue Devils at Walla Walla High School, the circulation desk for Columbia County Rural Library and the book drop for the library in Walla Walla.

He's currently preparing football and soccer trophy display concepts for the WP Booster Club. He has generously donated some of his trophy display work in Walla Walla as he is donating the construction of a church kitchen in Spokane.

It also helps that three quarters of his work is in Walla Walla, where he works closely with the likes of Bobbi Olsen, the muffler repair shop owner who also has Walla Walla rentals and often need remodels or repairs.

Although he hails from Alabama, Seagraves has deep roots in the Waitsburg area. Ancestors on his dad John Seagraves' side of the family homesteaded at Jasper Mountain. John and his wife Susan moved back here in 1999 to take care of Brian Seagraves' grandmother Margaret.

Seagraves himsel f moved here in 2001 after a divorce and after years of making cabinets for highend homes all over the American Southeast. He met Sonia at a karate class while he was working at Richard & Lee's cabinet shop in Milton-Freewater. Six years ago, Sonia suggested they'd start a cabinet shop and the rest, as they say, is history.

Coyote, which has served about 1,000 customers since then, has plenty of clients in the Waitsburg area. A look around the 1,200-squarefoot main shop and 14x20 spray room contains a front door for Bruce and Barb Abbey, a meat counter cabinet for Danny Cole's grocery store and trophy display drawings for football head coach Jeff Bartlow.

His work pace is as intense as when he started, an average of 12 to 14 hours a day and often on the weekends. But Seagraves, who admits he can't sit still, wouldn't have it any other way.

"I like to tinker," he said.