Lori and Jeff Koppa werent waiting for a sign to start their own business, but one day it just showed up, in the form of a friendly challenge. They have been making decorative hand stenciled wooden signs with inspiring, touching, or clever phrases ever since, and in the process have opened a business they say sustains them creatively and as a couple.


The Koppas both say they know a sign is good if it makes their customers either laugh or cry, although some signs are more strictly intended for indoor decorating, like The Man Cave. Their signs range from 11 inches by seven inches, up to about six feet long, and start at about $20 for small signs.


As they reach the first anniversary of their River Park Square retail shop, Labor of Love Creations, which also sells custom vinyl lettering, the Koppas continue to change direction when necessary and work to be flexible as the business grows.


Both of us feel like its our passion, Lori Koppa says.


The couple is considering expanding. The current outlet has sold around $200,000 in signs in its first year. The company sells about $3,000 to $5,000 worth of signs at a weekend craft show, the Koppas say. They went to eight such shows over the summer.


They designed their 750-square-foot showroom to display signs in mock rooms, so customers can see how the signs fit in with different dcor elements. The rest of the 1,500-square-foot store is a generous storage area lined with signs in many different color combinations. The Koppas especially enjoy doing custom jobs, and that part of their business is growing, Jeff Koppa says.


The signs are made in a 3,000-square-foot-warehouse on Spokanes North Side, by the Koppas and several of their dozen employees, who paint the base coats on the medium-density fiberboard signs, affix the stencils that Lori Koppa creates, and apply finishing touches after Jeff Koppa paints each stenciled face using an airbrush. The rest of the companys dozen employees work shifts at the retail store.


The Koppas began making the handmade wooden signs when Lori, who says she has always loved to decorate with words and sayings in her home, brought home a sign she bought that was in the only style she says she could find at the time, a rustic country look she calls barn wood.


Her husband didnt care for the style, so she challenged him to make a better one. She designed the lettering, he made the sign, and their interest was piqued.


At the time, Lori was working as a physical therapy aide in the Mead School District, and Jeff had worked in the auto-sales industry for 29 years. They both quickly found that they enjoyed the creative venture, and made more signs, at first for friends and then to sell wholesale and at craft fairs, she says.


Two years ago, after a hectic Christmas with hundreds of signs all over their house, the couple made the leap into a full-time business venture. In early 2006, they left their day jobs, armed themselves with a business plan written by Jeff and a $25,000 loan, and launched the business full time, Lori Koppa says.


At the start, the couple focused on creating a high-quality product and marketing it to upper-scale retail shops.


We realized our market was people who could afford to buy a novelty decorate in a high style. We went to the top (home dcor) store in every town, Jeff says.


The couple soon had a wholesale route that included a loop of deliveries to 14 stores around Washington, including in Spokane, Leavenworth, Wenatchee, and Kennewick. They also continued to take their signs to craft shows around the area.


After a whirlwind first quarter that year, they decided that they could make better margins by retailing the signs themselves and they reluctantly put the brakes on their wholesale business.


The couple says that it was difficult to end some of those wholesale relationships, because they had good relationships with specialty retailers such as Mels Nursery in Spokane.


That flexibility has been a defining feature of the business growth thus far, Jeff Koppa says. The Koppas business plan has evolved over time, from that original wholesale-focused strategy to the more local retail approach they now employ.


The company recently finished creating signs and lettering for a new aviation museum and invention center in Sandpoint, and are creating removable vinyl lettering for the windows at River Park Square, Lori Koppa says.


They also have refined their production process for wood signs, switching from the hardwood they originally used to the fiber board, which doesnt warp at larger sizes, and adjusting the paint mixture for an optimum drying time to avoid seepage under the stencil. Jeff says a major time-saver for him was switching from a round stencil brush to an airbrush for painting. He also transitioned from a painstaking hot knife technique to cut each stencil by hand out of a sturdy translucent paper called vellum to using a specialized machine called a plotter that cuts the stencil directly from a computer software program.


Everythings been so much trial and error, Jeff says.


Despite the changes, to get the type of quality the business insists on in each sign, the work is labor intensive, Lori Koppa says. Its that attention to detail, using a carefully controlled process, that makes each stenciling job crisp, they say.


The pair remain intimately involved in every detail of the process. Lori designs each sign using computer software and more than 600 typographical fonts, and Jeff paints the lettering on the signs.


Every single board thats ever left the shop was stenciled by Jeff, Lori says.


The Koppas say they get ideas for the quotes that appear on their signs from everywheremovie quotes, friends, books. They strive to say for people what they cant say for themselves, and marvel at some of the custom quotes people request, like you cant cram on a farm. Lori Koppa says they have never figured out what that means. She says she cant pick a favorite saying, but does like sentiments such as Courage is fear that has said its prayers, a Maya Angelou quote.


The business is starting to turn a profit, the Koppas say, but it has taken them time to learn the nature of retail. They currently have a lot of inventory built up in the retail store in hopes of selling enough in the peak of the Christmas season to carry the business through the January and February slowdown.


The couple have considered eventually opening additional outlets, such as in Coeur dAlene, Leavenworth, and possibly a Spokane location that could house a production facility and retail outlet. They say they also are considering hiring someone to help with graphic design duties and painting the stenciling on the signs.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.