The Story of G&B Urban Design

I grew up working with wood thanks to my family's cabinet company and a family full of woodworkers. Surprisingly, woodworking wasn’t my first career choice. I began my career as a chef where I excelled through my career and quickly became a consultant, opening restaurants all over Ontario and Quebec.

​I made the decision to change careers once I started having children and wanted to be around more in the evenings and weekends. Woodworking was the obvious choice at the time so I started working for a local furniture company. Thanks to my woodworking background and artistic style, I was able to create unique pieces that weren’t typical of the industry in this area.  

I first established my business out of necessity in a small tent in the backyard of an apartment. I had unexpectedly become a full-time single parent and needed to find a way to make an income from home to support my children. I began building tables in my backyard using locally sourced reclaimed wood and selling on local marketplaces such as Kijiji and Facebook.

Towards the end of the summer, I knew that the weather was going to become a concern so I took the little profits I had and moved into a rented garage. I continued building throughout the winter and started making a name for myself with great reviews. I knew I was on to something and I wanted to grow my company. I knew that in order to do so, I needed to be able to learn how to market my products better. I decided to put the business on hold and go back to school. I used the money from the business along with a student loan to return to school at Conestoga College.

I enrolled in a multimedia communications program so that I could learn various skills such as web design, photography, video production, graphic design and marketing. While attending school, I was also employed by the college as a tutor for the communications programs and worked for the college student association as a visual marketing specialist. I also volunteered as a communications advisor to a non-profit refugee relief organization, and did an internship with a local video media company in-between semesters. At times I even had to bring my kids to classes because I could not afford childcare. During my time there I received several awards and scholarships for my multimedia work and for receiving a 4.0 GPA at 98% in my program. I also was honored with letters of recommendation from many of my professors and several companies I worked with.
 
Following school, I completed a contract with a marketing company where I worked on several marketing campaigns including content marketing for a well-known Canadian Furniture Company. After learning how to market furniture effectively, I redesigned my website and optimized my SEO. This was my official relaunch in 2019 which, again, was in the garage of my rented house with my partner.

We staged our entire home with handmade furniture we started building in our single car garage and even poured epoxy in our laundry room. Within a few months, the entire house was full of samples and orders and our couch was pushed up to the TV to make more room. That’s also around the time when Covid hit and things became really interesting.

No one was able to travel anymore so they began spending more on improving their homes. This meant that our emails and phone wouldn’t stop. Unfortunately, it had an additional side effect; no one wanted to come into our house anymore. We first adapted to this by introducing virtual consultations where we used our webcam to walk around the house and show off our work. We used screen sharing to show photos of previous work and our reviews. This went a long way but we knew it wasn’t sustainable long term.

We decided to rent a 2000 sq ft location downtown Kitchener in July of 2020. It was an old building with many issues including many leaks and electrical issues, but we made the best of it. The first winter the boiler broke down and we had to build everything in freezing temperatures using multiple space heaters that constantly popped the breakers.

Within another 6 months, we had outgrown the space and were offered the unit beside us. We knocked out the wall and began cleaning out the unit as we slowly moved in. We started purchasing industrial machinery and bringing in bulk inventory to lower our operating costs. ​

 We have since hired 4 staff members with the commitment to improving the way trades treat their employees. We did this by providing living wages and a great working environment. We offer a $22/hour minimum wage, along with flexible benefits to help virtually any of our employees needs, unlimited discretionary time off, profit sharing, a monthly family meal, healthy snacks, and much more. Our ability to produce has increased dramatically over the past year.

We have also begun giving back to the community through various initiatives. We’ve always supported our local community by sourcing many of our materials from the Mennonite community. We purchase fallen trees and old barns to salvage the materials for our products. We use local mills to cut and dry the wood and local transportation services to help us move it. 
 
We’ve also offered to sponsor an award for the Conestoga College woodworking program. The award is for a student who demonstrates a commitment to sustainable building practices. We use this as a way to encourage future woodworkers to consider the environment when deciding what materials. It also allows us to educate on the dangers of the chemicals used in fast furniture production and how they end up in our landfill. ​

Over the past several months, covid has caused supply chain issues with imported furniture products out of Asia. This has affected the furniture store market causing long delays and inflating prices on furniture products. This has opened up a major opportunity to supply furniture stores with our Canadian-made products. We have rebranded our name to be more recognisable and streamlined our manufacturing to be able to produce at scale. We offer competitive pricing and are ready to take on high demand. 
 
Our next step is to set up seller channels and hire b2b sales representatives to approach furniture stores with our product line. We also need an initial marketing budget in order to provide sales support and improve our systems by implementing better technology and sales tools. Our production line is set up for high production, however, there are some key pieces of equipment such as a forklift that would greatly improve productivity and safety. This would reduce the chance of injury and improve the overall working environment which will lead to better employee retention. ​

 
Overall, we feel like we bring a lot of value to our community as a company and we believe we are ready to scale our vision to the next level. With a little help, I believe we can improve the Canadian furniture industry and create a household name that stands for sustainable quality.
 
Thank you for taking the time to read our story.