St. Michel Furniture store on Main Avenue in Rugby is expanding its space. Rob St. Michel, owner, purchased the building next door to the furniture store, which was known as Rugby Motors at one time.

The building has 4,000 sq. ft. on each of two floors, and room for apartments above and parking in the full basement below.

A huge renovation project is being planned. A wall is being torn down between the two buildings to make it all one big building. The wall between the two buildings is 21″ thick, which has made for slow going in tearing it down. The floor covering department will be housed on the main floor of the new building after the renovation. This will open up more space in the main part of the store for expanding the furniture displayed there.

“For the first time in the store’s history, the store space and the warehouse will all be in the same building,” said St. Michel, who is looking forward to that change.

“I’ve already added one extra employee part-time, which most likely will develop into full-time eventually,” said St. Michel.

Part of the plan is to rent out space in the basement to park classic cars, etc. for the winter. “It will be heated,” said St. Michel. This was done in earlier days so the space is already set up for that.

St. Michel also plans to renovate the upstairs for apartments with a heated space to park tenants’ cars underneath the apartments. The apartments may not be ready for a year or two, depending on how the project progresses.

St. Michel would also like to learn more about the history of the building he has purchased. If anyone has any information, please share it with him. He has found boards that have the signatures of local subcontractors and salespeople and others who were involved with the building in 1941. Does anyone know the story behind these signed boards? He suspects it was a sort of a time capsule for later generations to find.

St Michel furniture store has been in its present location since October of 2001. Rob St. Michel started his career managing Nelson’s Furniture Store in the location of the Vacuum Shop. In 1997, St. Michel bought the business and four years later moved it to Main Avenue, where it is today.