One of the questions we often get is how on earth did we manage to get into this business? The answer is that we started very small. We did our first projects for people we already knew. We were asked it we could build a “whatever” and the answer was alway YES! Then I would rush to my drawing board to figure out how on earth I might do it. The materials and tools we used initially were ones we were already familiar with. Our skill level wasn’t very high in those days. The projects were relatively tiny in scope and the budgets were modest in the early days. Because we were largely flying blind and experimenting a great deal we didn't make much profit in those days either. Lots of stuff went wrong along the way. But with every project we learned a great deal. We always built in an allowance for some new tools into every project which permitted us to tackle more complex projects more efficiently as we went along. For many years we built our projects in the garage attached to the basement of our house. When we did some fibreglassing or other odour causing work the family knew it upstairs in a hurry. In the early days we hired a friend to do the welding. Every project was a little more complex and a little grander, as our skills grew. With every project our reputation grew a little. We always did our best to deliver much more than we promised, and always beat our promised deadlines. In the beginning I continued to do other work, painting murals and commercial art, gradually phasing those out as we got busier with the theme work. After years of working hard our business was an ‘instant’ success. :)
