I'd Rather Be the Fisherman

After 16 years in this business my goals went from getting a good job in the trades to turning Streamline Craftsman into an remodeling enterprise.  Not sure if that is the male ego in me or if having a successful company sounded fun, but nonetheless this is what I have been steering Streamline towards.  And frankly having great success in doing so.  It's amazing how quickly it's grown!

The industry is booming right now and its actually pretty crazy to see.  Most of us in this business have struggled a great deal over the past 5 years.  People calling around begging for work, myself included at times.  And now things are so busy even finding good labor is difficult!  Anyone that can actually do good work is doing just that, but on their own.  My school of thought has always been never say no.  If work comes your way take it!  Ill figure out a way to get it done.  So this year I have been a yes man per usual and before I knew it I had 4 jobs going on at once.  I now am running around all day meeting with clients, managing workers and delivering materials.  Then I come home and handle the admin side of things.  It's tiring but I was focused on getting through this because I wanted to reach my goal of running my "enterprise".  

As I lie awake every night, unable to sleep, thinking about my days and weeks to come, I always felt hollow.  Like something was missing.  It took awhile for me to realize what it was but finally while having a stress filled venting session to my lovely gal I said: "I'm not having fun.  I got into this business because I enjoy it and THIS, I do not enjoy".  I love working on homes and providing quality craftsmanship.  It was then I noticed that I personally hadn't started and finished an actual project with my own two hands in months!  That rant inspired Jess to tell me the story of The Fisherman and the Businessman by Paulo Coelho.  

I was working double time so that I could relax one day.  But does that day ever come?  Am I ever going to be satisfied with the business?  Does it one day just get easier?  Will I live long enough to ever enjoy the "good life"?  Because I feel I have aged 10 years just in these past 3 months!  I had a extremely skilled master craftsman working for me last year.  He was striving to be the businessman and worked night and day to get there.  At 46 years old his heart stopped in his sleep.  The world will no longer get to benefit from his abilities......  Do I run that same risk if I keep this up?  We can't answer questions like these but we can ask ourselves what we really, really want.  Not what we are trained to want, but what we truly want.

I want to provide excellent craftsmanship and customer service.  I want to challenge my abilities and use my creativity to give my clients one of a kind remodels.  I want to continue my new found passion for building furniture.  I want to live, be healthy and be able to appreciate what I have daily, not just in hindsight.  I want, to be the fisherman.  Hell, I was the fisherman!  I just didn't understand what I had and I left his ass at the docks while I pursued "bigger and better" things.   

The quality of work we provide is unmatched and I am lucky that people are willing to wait for our services.  So from now on Streamline will be taking one project on a time at a time and focusing all our energy on making that job AMAZING.  Now those clients will get ALL my attention rather than the dazed looking, mind in 15 other places, needs a drink guy they have been getting.  I still have a busy summer ahead of me but I look forward to getting my hands dirty and creating again!  

I promise my next blog will be less deep!  

Know your enemy

Since I was a kid I always knew I wanted to do something with my hands for a living.  Not really having any family members that were in the trades I didn't really have a direction to travel.  Until one day a bearded man walked into my life via the TV.  That man, was Bob Villa.  Mr. Villa, or Bobby V as I like to call him gave me that direction.  And just like that a contractor was born! 

Thankfully I had the mechanical ability so it was easy to learn the hands on part of being a contractor but as a kid that wasn't of legal age to work, how was I supposed to learn about home remodeling?  So, much like "Chip" Douglas (The Cable Guy) my TV became my teacher.  Back then all there really was to watch was This Old House.  But I learned a ton about construction watching the best of the best apply their expertise to build peoples dream homes.  These homes were typically out of the financial realms of most people so at best you just envied the work.  You only dreamt of doing those things to your home. It did however inspire ideas of design and application.  Smart people picked up on this and started to make home improvement show after home improvement show.

HGTV and the DIY Network are essentially 24hrs of home improvement shows.  They range from actual do it yourself work to the money is no object remodels.  

When they started it was mainly do it yourself type shows that inspired homeowners to, you guessed it, do it themselves.  Which most of the time resulted in catastrophe. Their DIY project would then result in calling an actual contractor to repair what was done, although usually after some time.  Most of us never want to admit defeat so convincing yourself that the sponge paint you just put on your living room walls looks good isn't hard to believe.  But a contractor eventually was called to save the day.  This was good for me but unfortunate for my clients.

The DIY shows bled into the home makeover shows.  Some of these makeovers even got "extreme".  These shows, as cool as they are to watch, are awful in every way for the viewer.  They create a unrealistic expectation of of how home remodeling works.  Regardless of what you knew to be fact before you now think an entire home can be built in less than a week.  AND for little to no money.  This fad was brutal on the contractor.  Every project I personally looked at and during the height of these shows all of sudden needed to be done in about a quarter of the time it actually takes and should be done cheap.  My guys should work night and day but at the cost of a half days work.   I think after Ty Pennington sobered up, so did the television networks because these shows started to fade away.  Now I can get back to doing quality work at a fair price without hearing about how some guy on TV drywalled, painted, tiled and grouted a bathroom in 8 hours right?

Not so much.

Now these channels are full of shows that have a respected "contractor" come to the rescue and save a family that was screwed over by the contractor they originally hired.  This TV contractor then has crews come to repair and finish their project.  During the past year when I meet with potential clients I have noticed I need to work much harder for them to warm up to me.  And I am easily warm up toable! (Its a word, don't look it up, trust me)  Only after my last meeting did I put two and two together.  These shows are creating a bad vibe towards contractors.  If you watch these shows you now feel that every contractor is going to rip you off unless they are on TV.  All non TV contractors are basically scam artists that will take your money and run or destroy your home one 2x4 at a time.  This is just a major bummer for me.  I work very hard at pleasing my clients as any existing one would tell you.  To walk into a potential clients home and feel like I am a scumbag until proven otherwise sucks.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some BAD contractors out there.  Hell, I have worked for some of the worst.  But as a whole we are all mostly good and care about our work.  We typically start off as carpenters and enjoy building.  We see the business as an art form and our clients as our fans and you must keep your fans happy.  This isn't our job, its our passion.  

Oddly enough, as much as I see the negatives these shows can have on my industry I watch them all the time.  I love seeing new applications or products.  Design ideas I may not have seen.  I learn something new every time I watch these shows.  And since people looking to do a remodel often watch these shows for ideas it also allows me to keep my finger on the pulse of new styles and trends.  So as much as I would like to tell you to not watch these shows and they are only poisoning your mind, I can't.  I am guilty of drinking the Kool-Aid too.  Just for different reasons.

Micheal Coreleone said it best: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"  So HGTV and the DIY Network are basically my best friends now.

To Ikea kitchen or not........ that's the question

Whether you're a home owner or even a contractor I urge you to think twice before going the Ikea kitchen route.

Remodels are costly and as a contractor it is up to me to come up with ways to save my clients money.  And when it comes to kitchens, cabinets can be a budget killer.  Many of us, whether we choose to admit it or not, have been in an Ikea and even own a thing or two from there.  Why wouldn't we!?  They make easy solutions to home furnishing at a low cost.  Now when there we all see the amazing looking kitchens they have on display. What is even more attractive is the price!  As a contractor this has always intrigued me.  An awesome looking kitchen for under five grand?  Yes please!  But because I have owned several pieces of Ikea cardboard furniture that once its erected should not be moved, looked at or even touched, I was weary to offer this as a cost saving solution to my clients.  So what better way to test their product than on my own home.

My fiance and I love the modern look so after some shopping we decided to go the Ikea route.  Hell, since the labor is free what do we have to lose right?

Let the games begin!
  
The process of getting the cabinets is trying to say the least.  You yourself need to go to Ikea and design your kitchen on a computer they provide for you.  This software is much like floor planning software I use for larger projects.  To put it simply, if you have doubts in your computer skills, stop thinking about Ikea cabinets now.  After that process your order gets sent downstairs to be picked.  This is dope!  No 2 month wait for your cabinets!  They estimate it to take about 1 min per item and most kitchens will be 100 or more items.  So after you order go grab a beer and some Swedish meatballs because its gonna be awhile.  Hopefully you brought a large truck because you'll need it to take everything home.  After this process alone you will be exhausted, so get some rest and start fresh in the morning.

Now the fun begins!  If you have trouble with erecting a bookshelf from Ikea but eventually get it, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT go the Ikea cabinet route.  As a contractor I can put almost anything together.  Hell, I can easier build it from scratch.  But this was not an easy project.  The "directions" are nothing like that of a book case but still understandable.  Building the cabinet boxes is the easy part.  After that you need to go rouge because from here on out there are no instructions to follow.  You WILL make plenty of mistakes so have plenty of beer handy to help ease the pain.  

Now a large kitchen cabinet install, by myself, takes about 1-2 days tops.  A kitchen our size should take me no more than 4 hours.  Using Ikea cabinets my install took 3 ten hour days, 2 cases of beer and A LOT of cursing.  This was no easy feat but with that said, we love our kitchen.  The cabinets themselves are strong, the design is exactly what we wanted and their storage solutions gave our smaller kitchen a larger feel.

After going through the growing pains on my kitchen I know doing another one would be much less painful but I still would not recommend this option to any of my clients.  The added labor costs alone for a kitchen like this null the cost you save on the cabinets themselves.  But if you are a homeowner and fancy your self "handy" and have the time to do this it is a great option. 

Contractors be prepared and homeowners beware.  The low cost of an Ikea kitchen comes at a price.