You’ve heard it said before about certain places with an antique kind of charm, whether it’s the house of a relative, a friend’s childhood home, or even someplace you only came across by chance: “If only the walls here could speak.”
What is it about physical objects — be it houses or walls or tables — that give rise to sentiments like dreams come true? Words fail to capture the feelings we have toward historical artifacts in museums and family heirlooms tucked away in the corners of grandparents’ homes … or even front and center in the dining room.
Insight, wisdom, and deep feelings of connection grow from this sense of nostalgia, especially as we experience the déjà vu of family moments we were not yet born to witness. How is it that such objects can remind us of memories we don’t have? Well, because of them, maybe we do.
That’s why Jared Breedlove started a business of making memories for others, in the form of tables as durable physically as they are in memory of conversations had, meals shared, and time spent with those we love. And while these tables are meant to bring people together in the present, their quality ensures that the same will be possible for generations to come.
The name of Jared’s company, Beloved Furniture, is meant to reflect this intention: “Tables to be loved for generations.” It’s also a play on his last name, Breedlove, since family remains central to his business.
Born and raised in Southeast Arkansas, Jared started his professional life as a forester … “About as far from this area as you can get and still be in Arkansas — ten minutes from Mississippi and Louisiana.” His work included buying wood for a paper mill, which he used as an opportunity to get his hands on logs too big for wood pulp. From there, he would use his own sawmill to take the wood from tree to table.
Before it was called Beloved Furniture, Breedlove Woodworking (which started in 2018 out of Jared’s custom-built garage in Wilmar, Arkansas) made all kinds of household items. His interest in woodworking from a young age had inspired him to make all of the furniture for his future home. So he did, for he and his wife, Kathryn.
Over time, however, he realized that both cutting lumber and making furniture created an additional challenge of having to predict what lumber would be needed for products that might take another year or two to sell. This led him to focus solely on making furniture and selling it, rather than trying to manage both alongside woodcutting, which was unsustainable.
It was then that Jared began focusing on dining room furniture (especially tables) for the same reason he changed the company’s name to Beloved Furniture and picked up the tagline quoted above. A special kind of life happens at the dining room table, and he recognized that.
Around the same time, Jared and Kathryn had a daughter named Hazel. Together, they decided to move to Northwest Arkansas — where Kathryn was originally from — as they believed it would be the best choice for their daughter’s future.
Today, nestled between rolling hills and country woods in Elm Springs, Arkansas, sits a quaint showroom built by Jared on their family property. This land originally belonged to Kathryn’s grandparents, making their return to Northwest Arkansas a return to her childhood … and also the beginning of their daughter’s.
We spend most of our lives reflecting on experiences like childhood, which rapidly fade into memory as the present bleeds into the past. The best way we can return to those experiences does not happen through the intellect, or by the sheer will of the imagination. It often seems, moreover, like the harder we try to remember things, the more easily we forget them; or, on the other hand, the harder we try to forget, the more frustratingly we remember.
Memories are stored in the unconscious, and it’s from the unconscious that they emerge (which may be why nostalgia feels so dreamy). Places, pieces, and people are our real-life time machines, and it’s through them that we remember without even trying.
Soon after meeting Jared, I recognized his receptiveness to this reality. In fact, this lies at the heart of his operation: not simply giving shape to raw material, but giving shape to the potential for memory. In that respect, Jared Breedlove makes time machines, pieces that preserve memories in their grain.
From light-hearted conversations of Christmas tidings to life-changing conversations in a candlelit dark, it’s these moments that make furniture truly beloved, stained by the memory of those who once sat around it.
If only tables could speak.
Jared Breedlove makes time machines, pieces that preserve memories in their grain.