Lähdesmäki Oy

Reliable furniture store since 1972 

Our story began in March 1972 in Vaasa, when Raimo Lähdesmäki opened a small 100m² furniture store on the ground floor of a wooden house on Pitkäkatu in Vaasa. Prior to this, Raimo had started working in the furniture industry immediately after the army. Before founding his own company, Raimo toured another in southern Finland, selling door-to-door sofas as was usual in Ostrobothnia at that time. After all, most sofa manufacturers are located in Ostrobothnia. At the beginning, the selection of the Vaasa store covered quite a few different types of home furniture, but customers found a new store and the operations started comfortably.

1976 - Becomes a furniture manufacturer 

Once the furniture sales were up and running in Vaasa, it was time to take the next step. Raimo started manufacturing furniture in Ilmajoki by starting manufacturing furniture in Ilmajoki, mainly sofa furniture. Quickly in 1977, the divestment of the Vaasa store came to the fore, as the company invested entirely in the manufacture of furniture. The Vaasa store was sold to another entrepreneur. 

1978 - store in Ilmajoki 

Blood pulled back to the customers and after a break of a year, Raimo opened the store again. This time to Ilmajoki and for the first time to our own business premises in Ilmajoki Entrepreneur's House. The factory manufactured the furniture and in the store this furniture was sold to customers all over the province.

1980s - a time of growth 

Soon it was time to expand the store, and in 1982 a 2550 m2 hall was acquired from Ilmajoki along Main Road 67, right next to the old store. 

To Seinäjoki 

In 1983 we opened our second store in Seinäjoki. Customers were thus served in the Ilmajoki and Seinäjoki stores, and their own factory produced furniture for sale. The idea came to concentrate all sales in one large office ... 

Finland's largest furniture store 

In 1987, a new own store of about 6,000 m2 was completed on Ilmajoki on Kaaronojantie. The store was a huge investment and the result of Raimo's own vision. The store was to become the number one home decorator in the entire province. The store established itself as the largest furniture store in the province, and today the Ilmajoki store is the largest furniture store in Finland. Nowhere else in Finland is there as much different furniture on display under one roof. That is why, in addition to the surrounding areas, customers also visit the Ilmajoki store from further afield, for example from the Tampere region.

When the Ilmajoki store was opened in the spring of 1987, all operations were centralized under one roof. The Seinäjoki store was closed and Seinäjoki's customers quickly found the Ilmajoki supermarket. The company's own manufacturing operations were also discontinued in the same year, so that all resources could be concentrated on the operations of the new full-service interior design store.

90s 

The beginning of the 90's has remained in the history of Lähdesmäki as an academic year. The new store had just opened in Ilmajoki in the late 1980s and a huge amount of loans had arisen from this. The villages were said to have won Lähdesmäki in the lottery when they could afford to build such a great store, but in reality, work was thrown from morning to night and the amount of loans was huge. Raimo says that during the recession he offered the store keys to the bank manager several times. 

With the hard work and above all because of loyal customers, the recession was overcome. However, the recession taught to keep the company's balance sheets in order. Monitoring the costs and expenses of business operations has become Raimo Lähdesmäki's daily routine and this will continue. The recession has survived and the company's financial situation has been one of the best in the furniture industry lately. Due to the constant demand, another store experiment was carried out in Seinäjoki in 1991, but it was stopped in 1993, when it was found that Ilmajoki's supermarket was able to better serve the residents of the entire Seinäjoki economic area. After a long break, in 1994 it was decided to open our own office right in the center of Vaasa, where there happened to be suitable 1,700 m2 of business premises on offer. 1997 A fully independent Sotka store was opened in connection with the ilmajoki store.

21st century, growth in every region 

In May 2003, the Vaasa store moved to its own larger premises in Kivihaka, Vaasa. This further strengthened the market share of the Vaasa economic area. The Vaasa store served in these premises in Kivihaaa until the summer of 2008, when the premises were sold for the use of another store. Once again, it was time to concentrate all sales under one roof in the Ilmajoki department store. During the same year, 2008, Ilmajoki's own central warehouse was completed, which quickly turned out to be too small when the old warehouse premises were converted into store premises in connection with the supermarket the following year. The following year, a new warehouse was built, which initially served as an Outlet store, but was soon converted to warehouse use. Since then, a warehouse of more than 2,000 m2 has been acquired from Ilmajoki's Koskenkorva, which was needed to meet the needs of increased imports. A large central warehouse was also built for the summer furniture along Kaaronojantie. Today, there are storage places at many points in Ilmajoki. Our own warehouses enable the sale of a wide range with fast delivery. We are known for the fact that if necessary, you can always get beds, sofas and food groups from us immediately. 

Vaasa's new store in 2016 

After a long break, in 2016 our own store in Kivihaka, Vaasa, was completed. A modern store hall was designed for the central location in the Kivihaa area, designed with the needs of the furniture store in mind. The Vaasa store has found its place in the Vaasa furniture market, and we are able to serve customers every day, in two languages, of course. 

Online shopping for new waters 

We opened our Lähdesmäki.fi online store in 2013. With the online store, we are able to serve customers throughout Finland and also offer local customers our wide selection conveniently on the home sofa. E-commerce has been growing since its inception. E-commerce and digitalisation have brought completely new dimensions to our operations. In early 2020, we opened our renovated modern furniture store online. Today Our stores in Ilmajoki and Vaasa serve customers daily. We have a skilled and professional staff of 20 people. We are constantly developing our range with domestic manufacturers. In our store, you can often find products that are not yet available through other retailers. We offer the best brands in the industry and a particularly wide selection. Our own imports are even higher. We manufacture our own collections at various factories around the world, for example in Estonia and the Far East. Our Carpet Department is also growing strongly and we are in constant collaboration directly with manufacturers in India, Pakistan, Egypt and Europe. Our online store Lähdesmäki.fi serves all home decorators with the largest selection of furniture in Finland. In the Kesäkalusteet.fi store you will find the largest selection of garden furniture in Finland. And the newest addition to the family is the Nettimatto.fi online store, where you will find, surprisingly, the largest selection of carpets in Finland. For example, the selection includes more than 10,000 different hand-knotted rugs. We in Ostrobothnia are used to doing things big. Our selections are already the largest in the industry, but that is not enough. A huge selection of products is still waiting in line for our online stores. We receive comments from customers almost every day on how to find products in our selection that are not encountered in our competitors' selections. Our company is still a 100% domestic family business. Raimo and Irmeli Lähdesmäki are still present in the Ilmajoki store and their two sons Tuomas and Juhana have taken over the responsibility for the company's operations. 

Still, Raimo himself opens the doors of his store in the morning and turns off the lights of the store in the evening. What else would a sofa dealer do.