Betting on Yourself in the Millwork Industry with Chris McClelland

Betting on Yourself in the Millwork Industry 

In this episode of Verify In Field, host Jacob Edmond sits down with Chris McClelland, Principal of Parliament Millwork, to explore the unconventional journey that led him from touring indie rock musician to running a modern millwork shop in Ottawa.

Chris shares how growing up in his dad’s woodshop sparked his early love for tools, how he built his first painting and renovation business straight out of high school, and how he learned new trades the way many entrepreneurs do, by saying yes first and figuring it out later.

From swapping his first light fixture after a weekend of YouTube research, to touring the world in a signed band, to walking out of a commercial construction job after writing his resignation letter on the spot, Chris’ story is about calculated risk, momentum, and knowing when to bet on yourself.

The turning point came when he saw how powerful drawings and visualization were in high level commercial projects. That realization pushed him deeper into millwork, where he applied his signature formula, do a job, buy a tool, repeat. What started as small built ins and IKEA installs eventually turned into a full commercial shop, a 5,000 square foot facility, and a complete restart across the country.

This episode dives into creativity, business, risk tolerance, and what it really means to build something from the ground up.

About Our Guest

Chris McClelland is the Principal of Parliament Millwork, a modern millwork shop based in the Ottawa Gatineau region. His background spans residential renovations, commercial construction, music touring, hospitality, and entrepreneurship.

Before founding Parliament Millwork, Chris ran his own renovation company in Vancouver, worked on high end commercial projects, and spent much of his twenties touring internationally in an indie rock band. His hands on mindset, willingness to learn quickly, and comfort with risk have shaped his approach to business and millwork.

Today, he leads a growing shop focused on process, tooling, visualization, and delivering high quality millwork at scale.
Where To Learn More

Parliament Millwork
 https://parliamentmillwork.com 

Parliament Milwork´s Instagram: @parliamentmillwork 

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Transcript

Chris McClelland 0:00

I came into the office and somebody had already started moving stuff into the office, which I believed I deserved. Maybe I didn't, but at that point in time, I believed I deserved it. And I sat down and I wrote my resignation letter, printed it off, put it on my owner's desk, put it on my GM's desk, and I was out of there.

Jacob Edmond 0:22

Welcome back to Verify In Field, everybody. Today, I'm excited to share with you my special guest, Chris McLellan. He is principal of Parliament Millwork. They are a modern millwork shop in the Ottawa market, and we're gonna talk about his background, a little bit about the work he's doing today, how he got there, and nerd out a little bit about some engineering software as well. So thanks for joining me, Chris.

Chris McClelland 0:44

Thanks for having me, Jacob. Really excited to be here. Been listening to your podcast for probably, I don't know, I feel like I remember when episode one and two came

Jacob Edmond 0:51

Oh, wow.

Chris McClelland 0:52

It's been a bit, right? There's not a lot of millwork dedicated podcasts out there,

Jacob Edmond 0:55

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 0:57

Sink our teeth into what we got.

Jacob Edmond 0:59

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think we just hit three years from when we launched this, and, that was really the goal is, I came up in this industry and I didn't have-- there wasn't any content for us, that's dedicated to us. I feel like every other niche has it, and so that was the goal, and to be able to share interesting stories like your own. So maybe to get started, would you mind just giving a little bit about your background? How did you get into millwork?

Chris McClelland 1:21

Okay. my dad was an accountant, but we had the best dad woodshop, like on the block, maybe even in the whole neighborhood. So it was a bit of a gathering spot for the other dads in the neighborhood. And, it would be 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning, I'd be trying to watch cartoons, and my dad would be pulling me into the garage to catch boards on the other side of the table saw. And, it wasn't a crazy industrial shop by any means. It wasn't, He didn't do it for a living, but, a nice Delta unit saw, 14-inch General band saw, some benchtop planers and joiners, and was big on his Woodsmith magazine subscription. Mom would be like, "Hey, we need a coat rack for this," or, "We need a blanket chest." Dad would be like, "Okay, I think in the January

Jacob Edmond 2:04

Wow

Chris McClelland 2:06

Edition of Woodsmith, there's an excellent set of plans for a, walnut and red oak coat rack." So that was it. We had to get them all lined up on our bookshelves in the living room, and he would just pull something out of it, and some of them were dog-eared and he had planned to get back there in the future. That was sort of-- how he did the majority of his woodworking, following these Woodsmith plans, which were super detailed and that was my exposure to it, like from a really young age. Like my it's cliche to say, but your earliest-- my earliest memories, five years old, six years old, I remember spending time out in the woodshop with my dad. And then of course, when, it became 11, 12, we started to take the tools ourselves and build forts and build skateboard ramps and leave the old pole saws out in the rain and the same story everybody's got. But So I was no stranger to power tools from a young age. When I was right outside of high school, I basically started my first company. It was a painting company, spitballed into small renovations. Basically, if a client would ask me if I could do something, I would never lie to them and tell them that I had done it before, but I was always willing to do it. So I would've graduated high school in 2009, so we did have YouTube at this

Jacob Edmond 3:21

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 3:21

So I remember the first, not recommending anybody do any unlicensed electrical work here, but I remember the first light fixture that I swapped, and it was like I told a client yes on a Thursday or a Friday. I spent that weekend looking it up on, on YouTube and went to Home Depot, got the stuff that I needed, and it was off to the races. And did that for a few years, and in my sort of end of teens, early 20s, that was my principal source of income, my primary source of income for the most... I ebbed and flowed a little bit, but I had a registered business, and that was my go-to. That was always my fallback. And that turned into framing and carpentry. I wouldn't call myself-- I tried to avoid the handyman terminology. I felt it cheapened the brand. Again, nothing against the, lifelong handyman guys, but I was trying to market position myself a little bit differently than that. And so by the time I was, 21, 22, I, without a red seal or anything, I was already making, 30, 32 bucks an hour as a carpenter. And I basically just, do a job, buy a tool, do a job, buy a tool. Weaseled my way up, and then start as a laborer for one guy. He introduces me to another contractor, and then I'm on that guy's crew as a, a framing assistant or helper. And then just, being willing to research stuff on your own time and pick up new skills and honestly not being afraid of the tools, like being willing to be the cut man on the saw, like being willing to rip a rabbet in a deck board on the table saw or a site saw. Maybe you should be more scared

Jacob Edmond 5:06

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 5:08

if you're a junior framing contractor or like a guy that's, even if you've got your first-year framing certification or anything beginning of your Red Seal, like you might not have cut many rabbits,

Jacob Edmond 5:20

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 5:21

we were cutting rabbits all the time out of the Woodsmith plants.

Jacob Edmond 5:24

So for my-- for our-- my American audience you ref referencing Red Seal, can you explain the trades in Canada and what that references?

Chris McClelland 5:34

Yeah. so our-- I can't remember what you guys call it down there, but for us in Canada, we have a Red Seal program, and most trades, not all of them, but most trades will have a four-year accreditation program. I know for the carpentry, I believe it is levels one through four, and you have a combination of, actual like going into a technical institute or a college to do your book learning and some practical hands-on stuff in that institution, as well as an hours worked component. And you need to work with a, another Red Seal journeyman we would call them here in Canada, and that journeyman would be able to sign off on your hours, or the company that you're working for if they're, they have a journeyman or an assortment of journeymen that can sign off on your hours. Now, I have to say, do not have any of my certifications. I I did about a month and a half, two months of my C-level welding ticket at one point in time, 'cause when I decided I was gonna go back to school, I was like I'm already making this much money as a carpenter. If I start my Red Seal program now, I'm gonna go back to 15 bucks an hour as a level one." I was like, "What's the trade that I can make the most money out of my first level?" And that was welding. So I started taking that program. I ended up getting a job in sales and moving to Chicago for a month and dropping out of school. That's a whole other tangent that we don't have time for on this hour. But I said, I did some ebb and flowing to to get to where we are

Jacob Edmond 7:00

Nice. and you've got a lot of-- You got a whole studio behind you. how does instruments and music fit into all this? Where did that fit in your life?

Chris McClelland 7:07

So I spent a part of that ebb and flow, and as I spent the better part of my 20s in a touring indie rock

Jacob Edmond 7:13

Really?

Chris McClelland 7:15

to a label, we recorded albums, released them. We were-- had a really solid following in Canada. The band's actually still active. They're still going. They're under the name of Hotel Mira. When I was in the band, we were called Japanese Girls, and it was the best few years of my life up until, starting this business, getting married, having a daughter. But it was an excellent way to spend your 20s just being a degenerate, touring around the world, playing rock and roll with your friends. that is actually the thing that finally got me, I had to put my company on the back burner is 'cause it was, it-- working as a contractor and Not knowing if you were gonna be in town,

Jacob Edmond 7:56

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 7:57

two or three weeks from now, we might book a, a run with another band or play a festival in Europe or something. So it just got too hectic to try and balance client work, or it wasn't so hectic, but it was just too easy to end up disappointing someone by just not being able to honor that commitment.

Jacob Edmond 8:13

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 8:14

I ended up going back to working in bars and restaurants full-time at that point, or full-time when we weren't on the road.

Jacob Edmond 8:21

Yeah, it's hard to show up in the shop or on a job site at 7:00, 8:00 in the morning when you're out at night at shows. And I-- The first wood shop I worked in, I worked with a guy who was in a band at the same time, and I don't know how he would do it, but he'd come back from a concert the night before and at 7:00 AM be in the shop just totally just drained. My brother has a similar story. We can share that offline. But yeah he was in a touring band and then it's, eventually, had to make the choice, "Hey, I'm gonna start a family and have a more traditional career," and went into tech. So

Chris McClelland 8:50

Hard to make money as a touring musician,

Jacob Edmond 8:53

yeah. And it's funny 'cause I went to school for architecture, and architecture's one of those fields that I think is similar to, to rock and roll and being an artist in that everybody aspires to be the 1%,

Chris McClelland 9:06

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Jacob Edmond 9:06

You tell people, "Hey, I'm in a touring-" band and they probably think, you're a multimillionaire you got, a record deal. You must have all this money and all this stuff, and it's like that is such a small fraction. It takes so long to get that, and so few get there, right? The-- But there's this whole industry full of career musicians, just like there's a whole industry full of career architects that are just... It's just their day job, right? And

Chris McClelland 9:28

you thought the success rate of millwork

Jacob Edmond 9:30

yeah.

Chris McClelland 9:33

rate of musicians.

Jacob Edmond 9:34

of them are working in the shops in the day time.

Chris McClelland 9:37

Yeah, there's definitely a musician to cabinetmaker pipeline. There's a couple guys I see online that that all have a similar background.

Jacob Edmond 9:46

It does still, it give you, I would think, a little bit of that itch of the creativity that you're looking for from time to time, I would imagine.

Chris McClelland 9:53

Oh, Definitely. and it is-- I think that's why it's one of the trades where, artists and creatives tend to land a little bit more. I know, don't-- not to disparage plumbers and electricians, but is it, does it scratch that same creative

Jacob Edmond 10:07

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 10:07

Especially if you're in a fortunate enough to be in a position where you are also involved with the design process and bringing clients' dreams to life. And even just making or crafting beautiful pieces, even if you weren't the one to design them, there is a an inherent joy in that, like taking something from a paper set of drawings or, a napkin sketch and making something real and tangible out of it, that is a beautiful thing in and of itself. when you can conceptualize, draft, or draw it however you want, model it, and see it through all those steps, man, that is... It never gets old.

Jacob Edmond 10:48

So as a musician, I'm curious, did you write music? No.

Chris McClelland 10:52

I've written some music. the singer of our band was like, he's one of the greatest... He's the greatest songwriter that I know. And

Jacob Edmond 11:01

Okay.

Chris McClelland 11:04

Glue guy, supporting role. I was a sounding board for him. we had the Three Musketeers all for one, one for all splits when that was our time in the band together. But I can't take credit for his writing. That's, that was not my role.

Jacob Edmond 11:18

I was curious, y- what are there any parallels that you found from, working as a musician or in a band that have translated well for you or helped you with your, kinda your mindset of like- obviously we talked about the creative itch, but aside from that of just, obviously, being in a band like you said, there's this teamwork aspect. And and two, though, especially as a a startup band and establishing, there's a lot of hustle, like you mentioned of, hey if there's a concert with a run we wanna get on, we gotta kinda be ready to go. And so I would think that there's some kinda mental fortitude that probably prepared you for. But are there other things, the direct parallels that you've found, that you've drawn on that have helped you in your journey of starting a business as a millwork professional?

Chris McClelland 11:59

I think that especially in this day and age, and it's 2026 that we're talking right now the unfortunate or fortunate, depending on how you look at it, reality of life is how much work comes directly through social media and how important engagement and being willing to put yourself out there. That was so important for us when we

Jacob Edmond 12:20

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 12:21

touring. You go to a city, and the first time you go there it-- you play to the bar staff, right? Maybe there's one, one person there, and you have to just keep hitting these markets over and over again. And that next show's five people, then maybe 10 people. Then if you can get it to snowball you're laughing. But, how do you get those people out to that show? That's, If I'm in and I'm playing Regina the next night, like after my show in Saskatoon, I'm on Facebook. This was Facebook Messenger back

Jacob Edmond 12:50

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 12:54

to be able to do this quite easily on Facebook. You could search your entire friends list by city. You meet somebody new and you search by city and be like, "Okay, who do I know from this city?" Boom, send them a message. That's actually how my wife and I's relationship came to be. in Europe. It's Okay, who do I know that lives in Cologne, Germany?" Looked it up. "Oh, Karina lives in Cologne, Germany. Let's send her a message and invite her out to the concert."

Jacob Edmond 13:19

That's interesting because that is something as musicians you kinda had to be... I don't think people who've not been in the music industry realize this, you're a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades. And, I remember my brother, he became a web developer out of necessity, and you're booking shows, you're marketing, you're networking, you're running a business, you're running books you're, all these things that really you're running an enterprise. And it's, just... I don't-- Not to go too far on the music tangent, but it's something that I think has become a given today. But it's something that I don't think all genres of music really took to naturally, but I think hip hop did really good early on was realizing that, hey, music is a business, and I think other genres have learned from that a little bit and adopted some of those things of "Hey, if I wanna put my art out there and I wanna make a living out of this, there is a business side of that." And I think that's something that similarly woodworkers and millworkers struggle with, and I hear every day is one, why don't people appreciate craftsmanship anymore, and I just wanna do good work, and people wanna buy cheap work. And there's just always this kind of like existential crisis of craftsman first versus business. And our industry is filled with craftsman first who stumbled into a business second, but never really made that graduation to like ta- thinking of themselves as an entrepreneur. And so I'm curious your thoughts on that, of how, I think it seems like you've ha- made some very conscious, or, decisions throughout your career trajectory so far at each stage of "Hey, I'm gonna give this a try. Hey, I need to put this away so I can go be a musician and give this, wait. I wanna go back to school, but I need to make sure I'm making enough money, I'm gonna do welding." And now you've started, a business and you're full on into this, right? Is that are you having conscious thoughts or is it just hey you're drawing on your experience this is the next thing I need to do?

Chris McClelland 15:05

So I think that a big part of it and a big part of my whole life has

Jacob Edmond 15:09

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 15:14

be ready to jump on it. And I didn't want to... after spending that much time in the band, for one, I didn't have time to okay, now I'm gonna start my four-year undergrad.

Jacob Edmond 15:24

Yeah,

Chris McClelland 15:26

Now at 27, I'm gonna start my bachelor's so I can go to law school. It's like I've been so poor for so long, it's time to Again, that same decision that I made when I went to school for welding. That was back when I was like 19, now I'm married, left the band, and it's okay, like where, where can we get our bread buttered here the fastest? What's the best route that I can take here? And I even along the way made not conscious dec- or I made conscious decisions the whole way, but decisions that presented themselves to me, I wasn't necessarily for. I wasn't necessarily looking to go make these pivots, but just the right... by pure dumb luck, I would be in the right place at the right time and have an opportunity to, enter into a field at a higher level. Like for instance, when I f- got back into construction, I was actually going to school again to get my real estate license. That was the plan. Okay, we're gonna buy and flip houses. My family had some rental property back in Vancouver, and I was like, okay, let's sales. Back to that whole thing, being a musician, you're an entrepreneur, you're a salesman. I also worked in bars and restaurants serving, bartending, managing. Sales is hard, right? Not everyone is cut out to cold call or to talk to a stranger for two hours and, build a rapport with them. Like it, that is a... You can learn it for sure, but it's definitely you have to be Or you're gonna have an easier time if it's ingrained in you and it's a little bit sort of part of your DNA that outgoing, bubbly personality and your battery actually not being depleted by talking and having conversations with other people. Like I can tell, you know what, we're 20 minutes, 25 minutes into our conversation here. I have more energy now than when we first logged on. And I'll be bouncing off the walls by the time this is done. and the, So when I was going to school for real estate, my mom had a friend who was a painting contractor that worked for, again, I don't wanna-- I can't use names here, but the billion- billionaire class type clients and company in the city of Vancouver. And they were looking for a guy that had a truck and, had some tools and could be both a site guy and a an office guy at the same time and kind of blend both those roles together, and I did not have a truck. and we went for-- I got invited for an interview at their fancy downtown office, and they're like, Yeah, like we'll have a, this role would have an office in the a cubicle in the bullpen, but really you got steel toes, you got tools." And at this point, I had a little 400 square foot shop in our garage, and I was, watching a lot of YouTube woodworking content. And honestly, at this point in my life, I kinda thought I was gonna be an epoxy waterfall river table guy. Now, in my defense, this is like 2015, 2016. I was not on the

Jacob Edmond 18:40

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 18:41

this is like maybe 2018.

Jacob Edmond 18:43

there's some people who made a killing selling those for a few years there.

Chris McClelland 18:47

Absolutely, and I think some guys are

Jacob Edmond 18:48

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 18:50

I was too, Way too late to the party. I basically ended up picking up this job, working for-- at the highest level of commercial construction in the city of Vancouver. And seeing what, like how the trades operated and how it wasn't actually that inherently different from the Mickey Mouse residential level that I was at 10 years ago, eight years ago. The big difference was, I really realized he who draws dictates the project and how important the role of the architect, the designer the millwork shop drawing, like became paramount to the success of a project. Whereas before I would, roll up to a client project and like small reno stuff, it's like there's no drawing package. Like we're not knocking walls down. We're doing written scopes of work and the clients are, are-- Their expectation and your expectation might not be perfectly aligned. And there's how do you match these couple sentences on an Excel quote to what the client's actual expectation is? And I was watching and there was a guy in our office and he was in-house. was not a certified architect or a drafting technician at all, but he was working in SketchUp, and he was like a full-time SketchUp guy for doing three renderings for our clients so they could see the product in as close to a finished representation as we could do at the time. it was like, oh, okay, that is-- that's here. That's the, that's a tool. I could read CAD plans, 2D CAD plans. We had a plot printer, printing off big architectural plans as well. But we were watching and seeing, okay, these clients are-- they can't read those 2D drawing sets, and they don't actually know what that means. But everyone is reading these, these-- I don't-- At the time I remember being like, Oh, my God, these are photorealistic." 10 years ago. I don't think were photorealistic. Like he, he was, to my knowledge, he was not doing any secondary, Enscape or V-Ray additions to his renderings, but it was like we were applying textures and rendering in 3D and, putting the hex tile patterns on and everything. And it was, it was definitely very, next level at the time and it was a huge a huge bonus to the company to be able to show the clients exactly what they were getting both for the managing of the expectation on the commercial side. That's a huge thing. It's like they were like, "Oh, I wasn't expecting it to look like this." We have this hex tile is going to interact with this, eight-inch wide, reclaimed oak flooring. And we have these tiles tying in like this, and that is now drawn and rendered here And it's the exact same. It's to the mill of what, our designers spec. So is there to really be upset about? But watching that and working in this role and seeing okay so these are just a bunch of chucks with trucks with a good drawing set, like at the end of the day. That's a gross simplification. But then, of course, eventually I'm with the company for about a year and I'm-- I think I'm due for a promotion and I think I'm due for... I'd seen a corner, not a corner office, but an office out of the bullpen that had just been a revolving door of PMs. I did not get my full PM title from this company. I wanted it so bad. Doing PM work, but I was not getting the title. And right before Christmas, the office was empty yet again. I think three or four people had turned over in that position since I started with the company. I was like, "Okay, I am I think it's my turn." It had been my turn, I-- to me, the previous three times as well, but I was like, "It's Christmas. We're just about to go on holiday. I'm gonna come in. I'm gonna talk to the boss. I've been working in the field. I want to talk to the owner and talk to our office GM and really make my case for the role." And I came into the office and somebody had already started moving stuff into the office, which I believed I deserved. Maybe I didn't, but at that point in time, I believed I deserved it. And I sat down and I wrote my resignation letter, printed it off, put it on my owner's desk, put it on my GM's desk, and I was out of there.

Jacob Edmond 23:12

And so

Chris McClelland 23:12

I don't need these guys. I can do this on my own

Jacob Edmond 23:13

you've seen enough To get past imposter syndrome of "I could do this." Whether it was founded or not, you had seen enough to be like, "Okay, there's nothing special here that I don't have or I can't figure out." Going back to, "Hey, can you do a light fixture?" I can figure that out. I got YouTube.

Chris McClelland 23:33

I can

Jacob Edmond 23:33

So is that the founding story of Parliament?

Chris McClelland 23:36

That's the founding... Tangentially, my company-- So Parliament's based out of Ottawa, or the Ottawa-Gatineau area. I was still in Vancouver at that

Jacob Edmond 23:44

Okay.

Chris McClelland 23:44

company in Vancouver is called McClelland House Bow, and that was one guy, me, 400 square foot shop in our garage at the house that my wife and I lived in. I picked up some, a bunch of subs along the way and some employees, and I had a combination of, we call them T4. I think it would be a W2 for you guys. Like a W2 is an employee that like actually

Jacob Edmond 24:05

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 24:05

So a handful of T4 W2 employees along the way and and I just continued to a job, buy a tool. Do a job, buy a tool. And then that into, now I have a 5,000 square foot shop in Gatineau. Now the-- I think a lot of general contractors have this story. We start doing kitchens and baths, and we, sell a job for 100K, and we're giving 70K to our cabinet maker. And I'm like, Okay. I am in the wrong business here," 'cause I am collecting all this money, I'm giving it all to my subcontractors. So-- and man, this-- like I've been-- I was like making furniture. I've made cabinets in my-- for my garage. I made some cabinets for my house. Like, how hard can this be? I've learned everything I know in the trades off of YouTube and just by standing over my sub's shoulder, at a respectable distance, and asking the right questions and just watching it be done, and then replicating it myself from there on. And then, like my usual formula was, okay, hire it out once. the next time that paid event comes up, I would be like, "Okay, if it's not something that has such a high barrier to entry, like I need some 20, 30, $40,000 specialty tool, I'm gonna just buy those supplies from Home Depot or buy those supplies from the home-- supply house, and I'm just gonna do this myself this time." And then I would definitely almost exclusively lose money the first time that I would attempt that thing myself, but I'd be like, "But the next time a client asks me to do this, maybe I'll actually make some money on it, or at least break even on it, and then keep climbing, keep going through it."

Jacob Edmond 25:46

Ja

Chris McClelland 25:47

and eventually I started doing small built-ins, mantels, like front hallway benches. Every millwork shop guy has the same story, right? Like we all start with the small stuff, trim, base and case. I segued into doing installs, or I would do an IKEA kitchen for clients, and I would install the IKEA kitchen for those clients. And then that segued into I would install IKEA kitchens for other people. And then, at the same time, I'm doing a job, buying a tool, doing a job, buying a tool. And then I remember some-- at some point people were like, can you make... wanna make grain match rift oak doors for this IKEA kitchen. Are you able do that?" of course. course, I can do this. But now at this point, I had been You know, on the whole fake it till you make it train for a while. And at this point I had, a 10-foot slider and a cabinet saw, and I had a 1,000 square foot commercial shop at this point. So I had never sold a full kitchen at this point, but I had been tooling up. I had been ready for this. So before I ever did a full kitchen for someone, ever, I did a full set of grain-matched rift oak horizontal grain doors. That was my... just why start with something s-something simple, right?

Jacob Edmond 27:11

But was that the straw that broke the camel's back of "Okay, if I could do this, why am I not doing the whole kitchen?"

Chris McClelland 27:16

That was the intention. I, as I was building out that shop, I wanted to... I loved being in the shop. I always have loved being in the shop. Even when I was annoyed that my dad was making me skip cartoons to help catch boards, like the shop was always a good, happy space for me. But like trans- that transition. So that 1,000 square foot shop space was right in downtown Vancouver. It was a great location in a super old building. I-- But I was like... I didn't have an abundance of extra cash, I had to, sell a job or do a job, and now instead of just buying tools, it's okay, now I need to buy a load of lumber to build the walls in this place. Okay. It's w- we've made it one step. And then it was like, okay, I need to buy a bunch of, BX and electrical fittings and a sub-panel. Okay. you know, Do one or two jobs, now i have another 3, 4, 5 grand to spend On materials. So took quite a while to get it from when I had that commercial lease to when I had a physical space that I could run even that equipment in. And I remember I bought the equipment from a guy that was going out of business. This was pro- peak COVID, and so he basically, his business crashed. I bought his slider, cabinet saw, 20-inch planer, sh- a general shaper 10 horsepower dust collector. Basically, a starter kit for a serious like sem- all industrial level equipment, all three-phase equipment, good stuff, and I bought it all in one batch for 18 grand before I even had power run in my shop. I had the two by four walls up and they were sheeted, but I didn't have a single outlet in there. then I had all this equipment in this shop, and I'm doing-- continuing to do the fit out of this shop around all this equipment, but It was-- I went there to that guy's shop to look at a planer. He was selling a 20-inch planer. showed up, he was like: "Oh, what are you here for?" like: did you not..." I responded to the Craigslist ad for the planer. He's like: "Oh, yeah." He's like: "But I got..." He's like: I'm selling everything." I'm looking around, I'm like: "Everything?" He's like: Yeah. He's like: "Dude." He's like: "I do all-- I do nothing but trade shows," and it's, March of 2021 at this

Jacob Edmond 29:29

Yeah.

Chris McClelland 29:30

like: "It hasn't been a trade show in a while." He's like: "I'm ready to move back home." And I was like: what-- If I was to take all of it what would you sell me everything for?" And I was expecting him to say, 40 or 50 grand, and I-- There was no chance that I had that cash, and, but I was just having a conversation. And when he said-- He basically said 15K for all the big stuff, and I was like: Oh, I was like: I don't-- I can't necessarily afford that right now, but I can't afford to not do this right now,"

Jacob Edmond 30:02

yeah.

Chris McClelland 30:02

So that was really the initial catalyst that went into the full headfirst dive into millwork. Still had to finish building the shop and everything. And then we operated about out of that shop in Vancouver for... I had that lease for three years, I finally, had enough money to finish the shop out. It was operational. We started doing millwork scopes of work, and we got renovicted

Jacob Edmond 30:27

Oh, yeah.

Chris McClelland 30:29

Yeah, the most cliché Vancouver story of all time. We were in a 6,000 square foot warehouse, like right in the downtown core, and that building had been slated for redevelopment for 30 years. They've been wanting to tear that down and build condos there forever, and it like the interest rates were finally low enough that it made sense for the current owner to do that. And we got the letter, We're changing your five-year lease to three-month-- Here's your three-month notice period," which they were allowed to do. That was buried in the lease. I did not know that, or that's not fair to the landlord. did not realize that or read it close enough when I signed that first commercial lease. But, fault's on me. It was my first commercial lease. I've learned since then. And we basically got, we got renovicted. Had three months, four months to figure out where we were gonna land and That's how we ended up in, in Ottawa, 'cause when we were looking for shop space, the closest shop space I could find that was even remotely within budget an hour 45, two hours, two and a half hours from the downtown core where I built my business. So if I'm gonna be 100 kilometers away, like, why not be 5,000 kilometers away? If I'm starting over, we might as Well start over for real. And even being that two hours outside of Vancouver, a single-family home was still over a million bucks. So it's not like I-- if we moved out into sort of the... That area is called the Fraser Valley, and if we had moved out to the Fraser Valley, we were now moving to a part of the country that had a lower cost of living and, my wife and I could also afford to buy a home. That's not the case. That's, It's still quite desirable real estate out there. The difference in being the same sort of shitty tear-down, 2,000 square foot house that we were living in the downtown core. We weren't in the downtown core. We were just outside of downtown in a neighborhood called Burnaby. That house was worth $1.8 million, and we were renting there. that same house, if we were looking at it out where the new shop space could be, that same house would still be a million bucks. So whereas now that we've moved out to Ottawa, that same-- we-- basically the same square footage, same two 2,000 square feet, we paid less than half a million for it. it made sense for us to make the move. Ottawa, for you American listeners, Ottawa is our nation's capital as well, it has the highest median income and the highest income per capita in the entire country. actually higher income here than in Vancouver. So Vancouver and then we've got Toronto as well. Both Vancouver and Toronto are some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Jacob Edmond 33:16

Yeah. They're kinda like LA and New York, and Ottawa is like DC.

Chris McClelland 33:21

York. Yeah, but is DC. not crazy expensive

Jacob Edmond 33:24

It is. Yeah, that's why-- and it has a huge high, 'cause it's all government contractors and related industries there. And so that high income in the whole surrounding area of DC is super high.

Chris McClelland 33:33

I'd be like Ottawa's more like a, Helena or a Boise comparative to the...

Jacob Edmond 33:40

or just,

Chris McClelland 33:41

Yeah or m-maybe more like a Columbus, like a mid-major market, like a Midwest major, like Chicago. It's not like a Chicago

Jacob Edmond 33:48

Yeah

Chris McClelland 33:50

Like I don't know, some-somewhere for the American listeners where you could buy a single family home, a starter home in the, 400 to $500,000 range. There's some ostentatious wealth here as well, for sure. The attractive thing to us for, as a millwork contractor was amount of clients out here good government jobs. A huge amount of the workforce here, like in DC, is government

Jacob Edmond 34:18

Yeah. Stable.

Chris McClelland 34:21

stable that was just-- that's missing in Vancouver from our experience. If you and your partner were, both making $100,000 a year in Vancouver, you were still living in a 600 square foot apartment. So we were doing condo kitchens, 30, $40,000 condo kitchens and, some fun materials, more like modern, a lot of slab. Again, like a lot of rift oak, grain match, walnut grain match or like a lot of AGT type soft touch products, because that's a million dollar condo or a $1.5 million condo. you have the opposite problem, where there is a lot more square footage. You've got a client and they've got linear feet of cabinetry, and they want a painted white shaker, and it's "Wait, how did this-- how is this a $75,000 kitchen?" it's volume.

Jacob Edmond 35:13

Awesome. Chris, I really appreciate you taking time away from your family to come on here and speak with me sharing your story. It's super inspiring, and I'm excited to have people hear it.

Chris McClelland 35:23

All right, and you'll send the meeting invite for part 2

Jacob Edmond 35:25

Yeah. Yes, definitely. We can nerd out even more.