Jim's latest new company. HomeStory Doors.

Remodeling franchisee
brings low-cost door
replacement firm to Utah


By Barbara Rattle
The Enterprise

The Utah franchisees for the national bathroom remodeling chain Re-Bath have expanded their business by adding a HomeStory Doors franchise, the second in the nation for Sacramento-based HomeStory, a door replacement chain that uses a proprietary high-tech method to vastly decrease the cost of replacing both interior and exterior doors.

Jim Fitlow and Mike Allen have operated Re-Bath of Utah in Salt Lake City since 2001. The firm recently relocated to about 8,500 square feet at 2350 S. West Temple to accommodate not only a flourishing bathroom remodeling business, but the addition last year of a Floor Coverings International franchise and now a HomeStory operation. Fitlow said the partners have exclusive Utah rights to all three franchises.

“We looked at the fact that we’ve been doing a great job at doing bathrooms for a long time and we have a huge customer base and a lot of those customers are still doing other things in their home,” Fitlow said. “We’ve already built the trust with them, but the problem with bathrooms is if you do a great job they’re not going to do it again for 20 years. We figured we have this great asset of a customer base, why not offer them more things to do with us? We searched what we felt our team and company’s core competencies were and tried to find other products that would work.” Enter HomeStory.

HomeStory’s proprietary technology generates custom replacement doors by taking precise digital measurements and capturing the geometry of the existing doorframe. It eliminates the need for time-consuming manual techniques, turning what is traditionally a three-day job into three hours.

“What this does is it takes the whole manual side out of the middle,” Fitlow said. “We go out, look at it, figure out what the customer wants, price it for them, and if they want to proceed we set up a measure with the technology piece, which goes pretty quick, and from there the entire manufacturing piece happens at Jeld-Wen, which sends us a made-to-fit door, custom made to fit each opening, and it’s factory finished. You take the old door off the hinges and put this one up. The prices are very comparable to the other ways of doing it because we pay for the technology piece to be in the middle of the process but we’re not paying for a crew of guys to be in the back shop manufacturing and finishing these things. We’re kind of swapping some labor dollars for technology dollars, but the technology allows us to have a virtually perfect fit every time. When we come back to the house we’re there for a couple of hours, taking out some screws, putting in some screws, versus tearing everything out. For $2,000 to $3,000 people can get eight, nine doors. One of the beauties of the door business is that every door you do affects two rooms. What is typically a remodeling project now becomes a redecorating project.”

A variety of door types, factory finishes and hardware are available, ranging from as little as $200 to about $2,000. Fitlow said the time between placing the order with Oregon-based Jeld-Wen and receiving the ready-to-install door is about two weeks.

Luke Helm, vice president of business development for HomeStory, said another headache faced by owners of older homes is also removed by HomeStory: the existence of lead paint. Because HomeStory disturbs little if any of the paint on a door jamb, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued the firm a letter saying it need not comply with the agency’s lead paint detection rules.

Eleven HomeStory territories have been spoken for, Helm said, and the sixth franchise will open soon. The HomeStory model is based on a door replacement firm founded in 1997 that still operates in Mountain View, Calif. The standard franchise fee is $300,000; initial investment is about $167,000, Helm said. Franchisees need not have any remodeling or contracting experience.

“We’re probably not going to stop at this,” Fitlow said of his expanding business. “There are a couple of other ideas we have in the fire.”

Australia -- Travel to Sydney

So we were all set to leave for Australia.  Departure date: December 27, 8 p.m.  Unfortunately, I awoke at about 4 a.m. with what turned out to be food poisoning.  Daddy-J went down about 8 a.m.  By noon, I had been to the clinic, gotten two litres of fluids and some zofran, and was starting to feel like I could actually get on a plane at 8 p.m.  Daddy was still fighting it out, but by 4 p.m. he was looking good.  So we were all set to go. We had collected our Australian exchange family from the airport and they were settling in.  And that's when Miss D went down to the food poisoning.  So at that point, it became clear that our Australia vacation was off to a rocky start.

To make a long story short (too late), Daddy, M-Moo, K-Wiggles, and G'ma Libby all got on the plane on the 27th at 8 p.m.  Miss D and I stayed behind and caught the same flight the next night.  Turns out all the flights went well.  Delta worked with us to change mine and Miss D's tickets (and only charged us half an arm, instead of an arm and a leg, etc.).

So most of our party arrived in Sydney on the 29th (yes, you lose a whole day on the trip out there).  They tell me they arrived at the house without any troubles.  They found a place to have breakfast.  They drove out to Cronulla beach (the closest beaches to the house).  They had Thai food for lunch somewhere.  Daddy lay down to take a nap at about 2:30 in the afternoon and didn't wake up until the next day.  I don't really know... I wasn't there.  

Miss D and I arrived the next day (the 30th) and boy oh boy were we tired.  We survived the flights ok.  I think we were so tired from being sick that we actually slept a big chunk of the flight.  We were able to take on enough food during the flight that we made it to Sydney not feeling to terribly awful.  Daddy, G'ma and the girls were there at the airport to meet us and drive us to the house.

And that was all the excitement of actually getting to Sydney, Austrlia.

The only good part about it was that Miss D and I got to spend part of a day with our Australia family.  They really were lovely, especially since we were impinging on their US holiday by staying in the house and generally getting in their way.  They very graciously drove Miss D and me to the airport for our flights that second night, which made things a lot easier on all of us.

This is a picture of the lovely backyard swimming pool at our house in Australia.

Over the two+ weeks we were there, the girls spent countless hours swimming in this pool.  They all improved their swimming technique immensely, and they had endless fun!

The house was (is) located in Yowie Bay, which is a smaller neighborhood south of Sydney, near Cronulla beaches.

More to come in future installments.

Australia!

Enough said.  First ginormous family travel trip.  Whole brood plus g'ma Libby all the way to Sydney Australia.  Left December 27 and returning January 15.  Tickets bought with airline miles, plus a little zhuge for economy comfort seats.  Free place to stay via HomeExchange.com. No worries about the house and dogs.  No worries about hotels.  Two cars to use when we are there.  A four bedroom house with swimming pool, boat, minutes from so many beaches we couldn't count.  NYE Sydney fireworks. Sydney International tennis (warmup for Australian Open).  We hit the Opera House, Taronga zoo, Manly ferry and Island of Manly.  Cronulla beaches.  Wattamolla beach in the Royal National Park.

I am battling severe jet lag, but as soon as my head clears, I will find all the photos we took (girls got cameras for Christmas) and put together a real blog post and a trip book.

Suffice it to say, we are so glad we went.  Kudos to the Blanch family for holding our hand through our first Exchange. (they have done six previous exchanges!).

Gotta figure out the next move on home Exchange.  Time will fly so fast before the kids won't want to come with is anymore.