NATASHA WINKLER
You don’t survive forty-plus years in retail by just selling frames. If that were the case, The Frame Workshop of Appleton would have been swallowed up decades ago. Instead, since 1978, John Ranes II has spent turning a 6,000-square-foot space into something that feels more like a preservation lab than a craft store.
It started out as a DIY shop—a place where you could go to hack your own frames together and maybe save a few bucks. But the Fox Cities eventually realized they didn’t want to do it themselves; they wanted it done right. Today, John and his wife Sarah, have basically cornered the market on high-end preservation. They aren’t just putting a border around a photo; they’re sealing history behind UV-filtering glass.
Walking through the store is a bit of a trip. On one hand, you’ve got the technical side. These people are nerds about acid-free matting and museum-grade glazing. They’ve framed everything from jerseys and military medals to weird stuff like football shoulder pads and antique lace. If you have something that’s rotting in a shoebox because it’s “too hard to frame,” this is where you take it.
But then there’s the Christmas side of the business. It’s a weird pivot, but it works. Every year, the shop turns into the Midwest’s heavy hitter for European collectibles. We’re talking hand-blown glass ornaments from Germany and French ceramics that you won’t find anywhere else in the state. They even fly in master craftsmen from overseas for their open houses. It’s a bizarre, high-end mix of Wisconsin grit and European tradition.
What’s impressive isn’t just the 100-plus industry awards they’ve won. It’s the fact that in a world where everything is made of cheap plastic and shipped in two days, the Raneses are still doing things by hand. They’ve moved locations and expanded their gift section, but the core hasn’t changed. They’re still the people you trust with your grandfather’s watch or your kid’s first drawing.
It’s about as far from a “big box” experience as you can get. It’s local, it’s obsessive, and it’s a reminder that some things—especially the stuff we hang on our walls—actually deserve to last.
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