Don and Shirley Rempel have been hand-selecting and hand-refinishing primitive and farmer-made antiques from across Canada. In their farmhouse workshop, Don redeems many pieces thought to have outlived their usefulness and restores them to serve generations of antique-lovers to come.
Shirley and Don Rempel have always had a fondness for the pioneering spirit and the handmade furniture and household items created on the homesteads of our ancestors. “We always loved the historic part of the pieces, the culture of Canada is in the pieces,” says Shirley, a former social studies teacher who also taught Canadian history. “Everything that represented the work of pioneers was important to me. Don was always interested in working-man pieces. I like everything that went with keeping house from pioneer days to now.” Their love of these rare items can be found at their shop, Country Lane Antiques in Fort Langley.
Shirley uses her teaching experience to educate people about the shop's items and how they were used more than a century ago. “I love that aspect," she says. "To see people enjoying the old pieces again and getting interested in them is terrific.” But it is not easy tracking down items from that era. “Pioneers were happy to stop using what their grandfather built. It brought memories of the hard times,” she says. “They didn’t particularly value the mundane, everyday pieces that were built out of a need to have it, so a lot of items didn’t get saved. We try to save what there is.”
