A unique furniture boutique

CLARKS SUMMIT — Dakor Home Furnishings Boutique is a boutique-style furniture store located in the former Duffy’s Coffee House on South State Street. When you walk inside, you see a showroom filled with unique furniture items and accessories for dining rooms, living rooms, and bedrooms. Owner Kelly Nunez takes pride in having most of his merchandise made here in America.

“I like selling U.S. product because it’s made well,” he said. “That’s something out customers appreciate that we do.”

Kelly works with U.S. manufacturing companies including Palliser Furniture, Furniture of America, Costa Furniture, Global Views, and Four Hands. He also offers the service of having items custom-made locally.

“That’s even better for our customers because they’re getting something that’s one of one,” he said. “They’re not getting something that’s mass-produced.”

Dakor has paintings created by local artists. There is furniture that is made by a local woodworker in Clarks Summit. One of Kelly’s goals is to give local people a chance to showcase their work.

“I think if they make one product that’s great, why not give them the ability to sell it in our showroom?” he said.

Kelly’s main goal is to give the customers a personalized shopping experience. He gives them a chance to look around his store and see what they like. He then helps them choose their design by asking questions about what style furniture they like. “They’ll come in with their ideas, and I help them bring it to reality,” he said. “I help in every aspect of it. Some people don’t know what they want. Some people do know what they want.”

Kelly loves to make sure they love what they buy.

“We want to make sure it’s unique to you,” he said. “It’s your decor (hence the store name).”

Dakor has a catalog and over 100 swatches of upholstery to choose from.

Kelly’s parents were in the furniture business. His father had an assembly job putting furniture together. His mother was into decorating furniture. Kelly started his career by working in his brother Paulino’s furniture store — D&N Furniture in Scranton. He was a salesman and a manager at a few of the stores.

He and Paulino still work together hand in hand. He started his business called Eco Mattress & Furniture in 2017 in a building measuring 600 square feet in West Pittston. A year later, he moved his business to a bigger building twice the size in downtown Pittston. To this day, this store location, which specializes in bedroom furniture and accessories, is still open.

“Faith, hard work, and building relationships have really helped bringing me to this point today,” he said.

Kelly decided to open a furniture store in Clarks Summit because he wanted to provide more higher-end furnishings.

His friend Deborah Keen, who is also a business owner, persuaded him into trying Clarks Summit. She believed it would be a perfect place for the service he provides. She showed him a vacant, spacious building in Clarks Summit.

“We came up here, I saw the building, and I like it,” said Kelly.

Kelly now has a big showroom to display more types of furniture. He hopes that his business gets bigger and bigger.

“One of my goals is to be in major cities,” he said. “In New York eventually, because I’m originally from New Jersey.”

Kelly finds owning a business challenging.

“You need to handle every aspect of the business, the hiring, the firing, the designing of the showroom, working with many factions together.”

Kelly also finds it rewarding.

“You get to give people ‘you,’” he said. “They see firsthand how you are. How you run your business shows a lot of the person you are.”

Kelly credits being a people person as helping him succeed. His biggest aspect is bringing different, unique, and trendy items like they have in the city.

“That’s what helped me cast out being different,” he said. “I don’t like to follow the same trend of everyone.”

Kelly is a member of the Abington Business & Professional Association. He said that he met a lot of friendly people in Clarks Summit.

“A lot of people still haven’t discovered us, but I know when they do, they’re going to love my brand,” he said. “They’re going to love what I’m about, and what we offer here.”