What started as a small hobby soon grew to be much more.
Adam Marano of Tallapoosa Time was a software engineer for much of his career. He started tinkering with woodworking as a way to decompress, and one of his first creations were cornhole boards for his daughter.
For the most part, Marano would make pieces for his family to start. People would come over to their house and comment on some of his works, pretty soon he started getting requests from other family members and friends. Marano said Tallapoosa Time didn’t really take off as a business until he moved to Lake Martin about four years ago.
Tallapoosa Time now creates pieces by combining woodworking, engraving and epoxy techniques. With all this extra inventory, Marano did his first festival in Dadeville three to four years ago, and now he’s a regular at many nearby festivals.
“You started talking with people, ‘Can you do this? Can you do that?’” he said. “My natural engineering training says, ‘Yeah I can do that. I don’t know how to do it yet, but I like the challenge of thinking about it and saying how can I do it, but how can I do it a little bit different.’”
A lot of Tallapoosa Time’s festival pieces are his smaller items like coasters, cutting boards, ornaments and party cup holders. His favorite things to work on are the bigger pieces like tables.
Abigail Murphy / TPI Adam Marano of Tallapoosa Time is currently working on a epoxy river countertop for Lake Martin Lifestyle Management, where he will soon have some storefront space.
By the start of 2025, Tallapoosa Time will have a storefront area in Lake Martin Lifestyle Management’s store, which will be opening near Highway 49 and 50. In honor of that, Marano is working on a large epoxy river countertop with Lake Martin Lifestyle Management’s name printed on it. The countertop is pushing 200 pounds. Marano said that’s another thing about this business, is you have to find ways to use simple machines to help you move and lift your pieces around.
Marano gets a lot of his hardwoods from a place in Montgomery and some of the more exotic woods from a place in Arizona. Although he is always looking for more local sources. Marano uses local lumber mills in Tallapoosa County and right now he has some walnut woods that came from a tree a past customer cut down in their property.
“People have accused me of being an artist,” Marano said. “I don’t consider myself an artist. I say God’s the artist because the beauty is actually in the wood and in the trees he developed.”
With Tallapoosa Time, Marano said he likes to find ways to help out the community as well. He donates pieces to nonprofits for their silent auction; some include United Way, The Girls Ranch, Dixie Sailing Club, Children’s Harbor and, most recently, he did a Lake Martin LED backlit sign for Loaves and Fishes’ silent auction in November
While Marano doesn’t have a storefront currently, the Tallapoosa Time Facebook page is where people can request orders or find out what he has in his inventory. These past few months have been busy for Marano prepping for the recent fall festivals. He said he worked 7 days a week for nearly a month just building up inventory for the smaller items. Although for all his pieces, Marano said the consistent factor is utility — he wants to create beautiful things people can use in day to day life.
