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Sewline Upholstery
If you didn’t already know Sewline Upholstery is my families business. This year was actually its 30th year anniversary of it being open in Medicine Hat. My dad started the business back in 1990, after first running it out of his garage. He moved into this location back in 2003, which was his second location. This building had been a few different business in its past and it wasn’t the most ideal but it was more space than the first location, which was one block over. Through the years my dad has done lots of rearranging to try and make the space work the best for the business needs. In a fantasy world we would have loved to purchase a new building for the growing needs of our business but that wasn’t the right answer for us.
Over the last few years the buildings exterior has gotten progressively worse. The textured brick made the paint worse for wear, especially when we got hit with a brutal hail storm last summer. The task of having the paint removed properly was difficult because of the texture. We had to decided between having it sand blasted or dry iced off. We ended up deciding to go with a company out of Calgary called Ice Jet to do the work.
Planning
We knew the option wasn’t there to move so we decided that we may as well make the best of what we have and do an exterior renovation. In the fall of 2019 I started planning my vision for what I wanted to see the building look like. Thankfully my dad basically entrusted me to do whatever I wanted – with in reason. I had a vision. to play up the yellow, which has become a know branding color for us, in a tasteful way and to create an exterior that is warm and welcoming to old and new customers.
The light industrial area in Medicine Hat can be a little off putting, are the businesses only available to trades? Can customers walk in? Is it appointment only? We are very fortunate to have a location that is right off the main drag of 16 Street SW, you literally can’t miss us. We wanted to make sure our customers felt like they were welcome to come into the showroom as well as be a shop stopper to drawn people in.
It was safe to say that the design we created has done just that. Once we finalized the look, I started to show a few select people to get feed back and everyone loved it.
The Vision
Next was the process of selecting businesses to work with on our exterior renovation. We had done the normal process of getting multiple quotes but I had my mind made up of the direction I wanted this to go and who to include. With the legacy of 30 years in business under the belt of Sewline, I wanted to offer a platform for smaller up and coming businesses in Medicine Hat. Of course, we totally could have went with companies we have worked along side with for the last 30 years which would have been great, but I felt like this was an opportunity to showcase some great young and local talent. After all the work I did designing this building I just wanted to make sure I could use it to benefit as many local businesses as I could.
Local Businesses
United Contractors – Ty Peters
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Ty and his trusty helper Brandon, did such a wonderful job with the windows, faux wood cladding and working with all the other trades involved. Ty is great to work with, very knowledgable and resourceful.
Contemporary Colors – Marcelo & Kelsey Ramierz
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Marcelo and Kelsey painted the entire building as well as the inside. They are so great at what they do, very knowledgeable and great to work with.
Grey – Zen Retreat | Yellow – Happy Face | both from Cloverdale Paints
Speed Pro Signs – Mel & Blaine
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Mel and Blaine did such and amazing job with our shop stopping circle sign and our large signs. They are always great to work with and really helped bring the vision to life.
Weimer Welding – Aaron Weimer
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Aaron has had his hand in a few metal projects on this job; manufacturing the circle sign, the awning frames and we are working on some numbers for the building. He loves to think outside of the box and is so passionate about his business.
Elevated Doors – Joey Heinrichs
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Joey was great at swapping out our seals for our overhead doors, they were damaged from the hail storm. He is very knowledgable and great at problem solving.
Wired Up Electrical – Marc
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Marc was able to source the goose neck lights and have them power coated Sewline yellow. Our building was had no lighting before and now you can’t miss it in the dark.
Boylan Imaging – John & Crystal
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Currently we are working with Boylan’s on some window wraps. So stay tuned to see what we have up our sleeves.
Cooper Equipment Rental
We enjoyed working with Cooper Equipment Rental when we needed a lift for our trades.
Thanks so much for reading through this, I hope you have found some inspiration and found some companies you may not have heard of before. Make sure to go check them out they have all done such a amazing commercial and residential work. Make sure to check out our before, progress and after pictures below.
Follow Along
We have also completed a showroom & bathroom facelift as well as an office makeover – make sure to follow along at @burknco or @burknco.designs so you don’t miss out.
If you liked this post you will also like My Sister’s Colorful Apartment Refresh.
