As most of you know, when I'm not busy being a dad and an intrepid reporter, I sell kitchens and bathrooms for one of the fastest growing kitchen and bath showrooms in the nation. I'm not the only one who thinks it is impressive; Forbes magazine agrees, too.
I've been working in the Kitchen and Bath Industry for about eight years now, so I am more than willing to take advantage of any chance to learn more about things in the home improvement sector.
Thursday morning, the Menifee Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting ceremony at Sherwin Williams on the corner of Newport Road and Bradley Road. While it is true that any new business is exciting for our community from a financial perspective, I was also impressed with several products they featured, including commercial and residential grade paint sprayers, and even cordless sprayers for smaller jobs.
The wall texture material is sold in premixed bags, ready to be sprayed and was designed to be adjustable to match existing textures. They had high performance wood finishing products and other good products for the professional crowd.
There were three products that truly stood out to me from a consumer DIY perspective. The first one was basically a painter's tape and plastic sheeting combined, allowing the consumer to tape off an area and lay a layer of plastic down at the same time and not worry if you missed a gap between the tape and the sheet. The second was a gray epoxy that dries harder than concrete, great for small patch jobs or reattaching tiles, and it uses a chemical bonding process so it dries under water as well. The third was spackling and primer all in one that spackles, dries hard in 30 minutes and is ready to paint, no primer. That was pretty impressive to me.
"We've been open since December and the store has definitely been picking up," said Tom Brummett, city manager for the Los Angeles District of Sherwin Williams. "We did the retail grand opening a few weeks ago; this is the trade event. You should talk to Natalie (Zwerner). She's the store manager and she really put this store together."
Brummett pointed out a blur zipping by that vaguely resembled a woman in a blue Sherwin Williams shirt. I could tell I would have to wait my turn. Toward the end of the event, when she had a moment, Zwerner walked me toward the employee break area. I learned that she started with Sherwin Williams three years ago as a management trainee in Dana Point, and that she lived in Yucaipa. When the opportunity opened for her
I asked her to describe her impressions of our community.
"There's definitely a lot more DIY traffic that comes through the store," she said. "During the Retail/DIY Grand Opening, we had over 105 transactions that day, and there were probably more people that were just looking. Although I can name about 20 professional painters that live within two miles of the store as well. One thing's for sure; the people are friendlier."
David Baker, our Man About Menifee, writes about his adventures in and around town every Friday in this space. You may leave comments here for him or email him at manaboutmenifee@gmail.com.
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