Custom Shed for Winterfarm Christmas Tree Farm | Sheds Unlimited

Hi, I'm Gary Thomas. We're here at Winter Farm Christmas Trees in Jarrettsville, Maryland, and we're here today to talk about this new sales building that I purchased from Sheds Unlimited. The old sales building had seen the end of its useful life. It was too small for a business. We had grown bigger. It didn't have a concrete floor. We had groundhogs that would actually eat through the plywood floor and come up, and we'd have to replace that. It was just too small, and we had done with Sheds Unlimited twice before with other two smaller projects, much smaller projects, and we were extremely happy with that. We had pretty much come up with the size on our own because we were replacing an existing business, so we pretty much went to them and said, here's how big it is. Here's what we want. Here's the design, and then they ran with it from there. It came back to us with plans and some specs, and then we kept changing it. We put the skylights in. We changed the roof pitch. We changed the doors. We changed windows. Because this is a Christmas tree farm, it's a very unique business. There's not many retail situations like this, so it's all custom from start to finish, and it worked out really well. It's always fun to see the families who come back every year, and we've got second and sometimes third generation families that have come here for 20 years. We've been selling since 67, I think, and so I've got grandkids that their grandparents came here. That's always really fun. I see some high school kids come here that have never bought a tree in their life. We really promote the family tradition on all Christmas tree farms, us probably more so than most places, because we have picnic tables that you can bring lunch if you want, and then we have s'mores so you can sit around the bonfire as long as you want, enjoy the atmosphere, the sunshine. We have some cutout photo opportunities. We have a nice Santa sleigh that people sit on every year and take pictures of on the sleigh. Also, we're famous for custom decorating the wreaths. My wife has been doing this for a long time, so we have the wreath here behind us. You bring it in. She spends a lot of the time in the year coming up with the best ribbons, and then you pick each ribbon, each ornament, so you'll have one-of-a-kind wreath. Then we have the large train display that all the kids like. You could push a lit. It looks great at night. You can hike all around. It's a 60-acre farm. You can go in the woods if you really want to. We give you new saws, new saw blades every year, so it's very easy to cut down your tree. We provide then the sleighs that you can take up, put it all in there, bring them back, and we shake it. All the kids love to watch their tree shake. All the needles go out, so it's a really nice family atmosphere here. The building has really exceeded our expectations only because the way we've done business in the past. We were always cramped. The heating was a problem. We didn't have enough room for sales. If it rained, we had tents that were fine, but for customer service, people would have to go out in their tents, and it was cold. Now everything is in one place under one roof. Everything's solid. People won't get wet. Tents won't blow down. This will be our first year with a new building, and it's supposed to rain, so we're going to probably be the best tree farm in the area that'll be able to service their customers in the rain. The wreath room that we're in now will be all protected. We have a 10-foot porch all under on the roof, and in the summertime, this was just so enjoyable to sit on the porch in a nice big chair that I'm sitting in today. Look out. We have a beautiful view over Deer Creek, and look at the other farms in the neighborhood, and it's just so enjoyable. If someone else was looking for a building, I'd highly recommend Schenzel Limited. However, go talk to them. Come up with your ideas, and bounce it off of them. See what they come up with, because that was really helpful to us. We had an overall thought, and we sketched it, and then they put it on paper, and then we were able to change things the way we needed it.