For those of you (or your hubby) in the construction biz

[garyo]

Some of you may know that Gary owns a custom cabinet business here in Florida. Unfortunately, the new home business has disappeared in our area (less than 5 permits a month for over a year now). Although he has kept busy doing small remodeling jobs, custom furniture, etc. those are not plentiful either. Sooooo, I was wondering what the rest of you handy type guys and gals are doing now for income since the housing industry/construction biz has been hit so hard?

Ruth

 

[sfmini]

My brother is in construction, also a custom cabinet maker. He had started his own handyman business (bad timing) and is going through bankruptcy and picking up the odd handyman jobs.

He does have work with a guy who owns a bunch of rental properties doing whatever needs done, but times are very hard for him.

 

[Katiean]

My father had a Custom Cabinet shop. When he started out he was making Grandfather Clocks. He would also stop what he was doing to make a cut for someone. He also would make adult size rocking horses and what ever else people would bring in to him. He did this to the end (was killed in 1978). When he died he was bringing home over $150,000 a year. He never had to advertise. His business was all word of mouth. People would stand in line for his clocks. Have you tried advertising on CL or in a local weekly paper? He also gave me a part of his business when he got a partnership for redwood house numbers and letters. I was only involved in the numbers and letters. I could show you a picture of the tables we made them on if my scanner would work. We sold the letters and numbers at Lumberjack, some ACE hardware stores and some mom and pop hardware stores. Not much help for now. In the slower times he would buy Junk at auction and we would sell it at the flea market along with some craft stuff we made. I have now tried selling some stuff on Ebay and no one is bidding. Good Luck. I know times are hard.

 

[Charley]

My son in law works in the construction business. He is a mason. He also does side jobs.

It is normal for him to get laid off on the cold or rainy days when they cannot work. The company he works for has always had big local contracts. This is the first time that they have been notified that they do not have any work lined up at the end of this month. So he will be going on unemployment as the side jobs are few and far between also.

He is now seriously considering joining the Air Force or the Navy. He is 27 and hates being idle.

 

[Gini]

Times are very hard, and I have friends that own a construction business. No work means letting the home they built go back to bank and move trying to survive. There is absolutely nothing here in Arizona. This no work is throughout the US, but it is hitting construction jobs the worst.

 

[Ellen]

My husband owns his own business. He is a body man. He generally stays too busy, but we have our times. He does a ton of side work to make ends meet.

I have a great idea, make tack chests. The go for a decent price and with you being in the business. Might be worth looking into.

Russ does trailers and dividers on the side. Not on any big scale, he doesn't advertise, but we have a big calling in our area alone.

Good Luck!

 

[wantminimore]

My boyfriend is a self-employed carpenter (but also does lots of odd jobs) and right now he still has work. He has a few small jobs now and nothing big lined up until spring. Last Jan-Feb he didn't have any work and hopefully that doesn't happen again. When he had that time of he skidded logs out of the woods and cut/split it, we now have enough firewood for the next 3 years

 

[Bess Kelly]

My son, the framer & roofer........does any odd job he can get. Does he pray for storm damage

Tough, tough, tough out there. He and another framer friend (they both ran crews and own business for long time) have a house contracted but, there has been so much rain in this area they can't get the foundation in!!! They search the permit offices for anyone looking to do an addition, garage, barn, etc.

He's been making some really fantastic bird houses

But even the flea markets are off. Our little town just had a paper mill close, 1100 people out of work.

This is a good time to be a garbage man -- at least the public services keep on working.

 

[susanminiponygirl]

Maybe he could branch out in to refinishing wooden show carts or making accessories for them? A little $ in the bank anyway.

 

[Marty]

Ruth as you know this has been a horrible year for us too. We are so in the same boat: if the contractors cannot sell their model homes, they cannot continue to build more and that means we have lost half our business as that is the core of where we get most of our jobs.

Up until this week, our phone hasn't hardly rung at all. Just a backsplash here and a repair job there. And then these past few days things have suddenly began to rock and roll. Ruth on Wednesday, two jobs came out of no where. Really big jobs. Then Thursday two more big jobs came in. Friday, the phone was ringing off the hook.

I contribute some of this to the website I recently built for our business.

I also contribute some of this to the fact that half of these jobs are out of our immediate area; we'll have to travel a bit further but that's ok. We've done jobs down in Georgia before that made it worth our while. We don't usually spend money on advertising at all except the yellow pages. Be sure you are keeping up with a yellow page ad; our phone books just came out again and also don't be afraid to advertise out of the area you are used to working in and expand your horizens. Ride around a go look for subdivisons that are going up. I am very confident that things are about to improve for us all. Hang in there. Things are starting to break.