Since 2011, April Dardis has owned Creative Style Furniture, a Houston-based, under-the-radar custom furniture builder. From restaurants to hotels to manufacturing pieces for national brands, CSF sits quietly behind it all.

Dardis sits at the helm of the largest female-owned furniture manufacturing company in the city. For 15 years CSF has won countless ASID awards and even received a proclamation — from Houston’s late former mayor Sylvester Turner — recognizing its contributions to Houston.

Starting with a team of six, Dardis now employs 32-34 people, depending on the season. Creative Style Furniture’s recent move to a new 24,000-square-foot facility near Spring Branch increases its ability to design, build, restore, and upholster custom furniture for the city’s most popular restaurants, hotels, and interior designers.

While Dardis admits that she stays too busy to remember every project she’s headed over the last 15 years, there are some that stand out among the rest. CSF manufactures all the furniture for the Pappas Restaurant Group, Gringo’s, and even fine dining establishments like The Marigold Club — including the miles of green velvet pleated and draped over everything from the ceiling downwards.

Furniture for iconic Houston institutions such as The Houstonian Hotel, The Lancaster Hotel, plus the House of Blues and its Foundation Room have all received the Creative Style Furniture treatment. Randall Davis-owned luxury developments include CSF creations in all of the common spaces, and countless boutique projects.

“I just knew there was a need. I had a group of creatives, artists, and artisans come together — there were like six of us — and opened a reupholstery company,” explains Dardis. “We just grew, and grew, and grew. We have six upholsterers and six framers who make everything custom. We do case goods, upholstered items, tables, everything. You name it.”

The ability to bench-make any type of furniture here in Houston is definitely a plus for clients who have large orders to deliver. For example, the ongoing remodel of The Lancaster Hotel calls for over 300 individual furniture pieces, but it’s nothing CSF can’t handle.

“I have an amazing team. Most of them have been with me all 15 years. Of course, we have added on, but my main team and my management team have been with me almost the entire time. We have a good, quality core group that is amazing,” says Dardis. “There are three sets of eyes — a data coordinator, office coordinator and management, and then me. Before things get sent out we make sure everything looks good. I have my production director, my upholstery director — all of the directors meet constantly.”

Dardis is also behind scenes of the interior design world, producing designs by top interior designers in Houston and far beyond. The team at CSF regularly drives up to Utah to deliver furniture manufactured for the popular design firm Studio McGee. Dardis feels closely connected to interior designers, since they mostly all came up together during the design boom of the 2010s.

“They [designers] are such a great support for me,” says Dardis. “They’ve been with me since I started. Way back 15 years ago when we were all small and now everyone is huge and growing. I love the support from them. They come to us usually because they like to see our workshop. They want to see where everything is made, what it look like, what we can do, and meet the staff. They can come in and tour around.”

Like many private label manufacturers, Dardis mostly works outside of the public eye. Custom orders that have been dreamt up by designers get delivered to their clients in unmarked box trucks and vans. Clients can include anyone from Houston Astros players to a member of the band Aerosmith — they just never know. One thing is for sure: CSF is loyal to its designers. The company isn’t super interested in dealing with clients or customers direclty. CSF will work with members of the public — they just have to know what they want.

The team at CSF also knows that their clients appreciate quality. They aren’t trying to compete with large overseas manufacturers and fast-fashion style brands.

“I cannot compete with China, and I won’t try to,” says Dardis. “I’m not here for that. We are making this by hand, right here in Houston. We aren’t mass producing anything, and that’s okay. It’s [fast furniture] not going to be good bones or good quality, but go for it.”

Dardis often sees clients who want the look of some of the well-known big brand companies but are aware that having it handmade is a superior choice. As many people know, even the more expensive brands sell items that are rarely worth the fabric they’re wrapped in.

“We hosted a thing for Texas Design Week and we opened up all these chairs — it’s just cardboard,” explains Dardis. “You’re just paying for the name; you’re not getting quality. A lot of times those pieces will fail, and then we will redo them for the client.”

The new Creative Style Furniture location allows clients to come in and look everything over. The selection processes have been streamlined and fabrics are available to look at in the showroom as well; the team just requests that people have a design in mind.

“We sell fabrics for a reasonable price ($30-50 per yard). If people don’t want to spend hours looking for fabrics, they can come in —w e have a little setup — and look at all sorts of things. You can choose your nailheads, your springs, and the inserts for your cushions. We even have a ‘Frankenstein sofa’ where it shows all the skirts, legs, nails, and different cushions. It’s really neat; you can sit and test things.”

From custom creations, to restoration and reupholstering projects — or even just some pillows — Dardis and her experienced team are happy to make any dream a reality.

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Creative Style Furniture: 2002 Karbach St.; (713) 927-3720; Open Monday-Friday, 7:30 am-4 pm

Courtesy of Creative Style Furniture

A statement-scale custom round table, designed and handcrafted to anchor this expansive entertaining space.