Wallpaper Store Opens On Sprague

Most people have corpuscles flowing through their veins. Mark Kriehn says he has wallpaper adhesive coursing through his.

“This business gets in your blood,” says the nearly 20-year veteran of the wallpaper business, who recently opened Wallpaper For Everybody at 12510 E. Sprague.

Why such devotion? For Kriehn, it’s a matter of creativity.

“Nothing changes a room as fast as a strip of wallpaper,” he says.

Kriehn first got into the business in 1966. He says he paid for tuition at a private high school and later the University of Portland by working in the wallpaper industry. Most recently, he was a wholesale representative with Imperial Manufacturing. He left because he was tired of being on the road all the time.

When the Wallpaper Store in the Valley closed, he saw his opportunity to open a retail spot here.

“If I didn’t fill that niche here, someone else was going to,” he says. His Wallpaper For Everybody concept is about selection. Kriehn stocks over 20,000 different rolls of wallpaper, in addition to a line of other wall coverings. He says that’s one of the biggest selections in the area.

“You can never have enough,” he says. Selection is important because customers are stuck with the paper they stick.

“They have to live with it, and they have to like it,” Kriehn says.

If someone can’t find what they are looking amid his thousands of rolls, Kriehn can order wallpaper as well.

New funeral home

Hennessey-Smith will open a new 9,000-square-foot funeral home at 1315 N. Pines Road. The funeral home should open in early September.

According to general manager Gary Trick, Hennessey-Smith’s North Side location serves many Valley families already, making a move here viable.

Hennessey-Smith incorporated in the early 1980s, merging the Hennessey and Smith funeral homes. The original Hennessey company dates back to the early part of this century, and the Smith company is even older.

Thrift store opens

The St. Vincent De Paul Society recently opened a new thrift store at Regency Square, 14208 E. Sprague.

Jurgen Wigen, sales manager for the non-profit group’s main store at 2913 E. Trent, said the society planned to open a Valley store for some time.

“We’re on the North Side, we’re downtown, but we weren’t out there. We felt like the Valley was the next place to go,” Wigen said.

The store carries clothing, some antiques and general thrift store merchandise.

“We only thing we won’t do there is handle larger appliances and furniture,” Wigen said.

Doctor moves practice

Dr. John Frlan began practicing Wednesday at Spokane Internal Medicine, 924 S. Pines Road.

Frlan is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine. He has been practicing medicine since 1983, when he began a one-year internship at Sacred Heart Heart Medical Center. Frlan then practiced general and emergency medicine for eight years.

He completed a three-year residency in internal medicine at Sacred Heart in June.

, DataTimes