Shop Tour With Woodpreneur Of The Week: Angelo Papania

July 1, 2021

Shop Tour With Woodpreneur Of The Week: Angelo Papania

This week we are shouting out Angelo Papania from Rustic Designs Barrie. What started as a hobby prior to COVID has since turned into a full time business. After being laid off Angelo has decided to bet on himself, his passion for woodworking and his incredible designs.

Rustic Designs specializes in custom rustic and farmhouse style furniture. A unique aspect of Angelo’s company is that they use digital renderings. This has been an amazing way for customers to make changes prior to approval and visualize the final product.

Branding and Community

Another strength for Rustic Designs is their social media presence. Angelo truly embodies many of the important aspects of not only branding, but also community and personability. Scrolling through the Instagram feed you’ll see every aspect of the design process. There are behind the scenes photos of work in progress, digital renderings, finished designs and most importantly, great splashes of personality that let you get to know the person behind the brand.

The Woodpreneur method is all about Branding, Community, and Sales. We always say that as business owners, we need to put our effort into the branding and the community, to earn those sales and that is exactly what Angelo is doing with his profiles.

Another crucial thing that Rustic Designs need to be applauded for is the willingness to connect with other woodpreneurs in groups, and put themselves out there!

The Person Behind the Brand

Before looking into Rustic Designs for this series I could have told you that Angelo made beautiful furniture. From their Instagram alone, that morphed into a sense of friendship and camaraderie. I’d see a post about drinking coffee and then heading to the workshop and think “Oh, that’s me every morning!” The snapshots of life outside the workshop perfectly complement the feed and give a feeling of community, personality and approachability.

Another aspect of the Instagram I personally enjoyed was the before and after pictures. There is a range there since Rustic Designs features pictures of digital renderings vs. the finished product as well as before and after pictures of the spaces that the products are going into keeping each post feeling fresh but also highlighting the work in a really smart way.

The Right Tools for the Job

Angelo and his sons each have their preferences when it comes to tools. His younger son Paolo does all of their digital renderings as well as hands-on work of prepping, staining, and assembling. He is the Milwaukee guy of the company. Angelo’s older son Francesco enjoys working with the Bosch tools instead.

Angelo himself favors mostly Ridgid as well as some other brands like DeWalt, Craftsman, Mastercraft, and the Graco GX19 sprayer which he notes that he can‘t live without! Some of his other favorites are Kreg and Milescraft, as he notes that they make the job so much easier.