Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor

FMBGN-BIZ-K-Dog Custom Designs-Craft As A Bridge Between Memory, Place, And Community

• "Cabo" Jim Schaller • Season 5 • Episode 42

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A single DIY bar, some leftover lumber, and a flood of Marketplace messages—that’s how K Dog Custom Designs began. We sit down with Kevin and Dawn Lindsey to trace their path from Ohio basements to Fort Myers Beach workshops, where epoxy, local sand, shells, and even shark teeth become functional coastal art. What emerges is a candid look at how a small, community-first business can grow by saying yes to custom ideas, learning on the fly, and letting the island shape the work.

We talk through the early days of building bars, why moving south unlocked a clearer design identity, and how post-Ian Fort Myers Beach inspired pieces that carry memory forward—like their pier table collaboration sourced from local artwork. The couple breaks down their process, from choosing woods and pigments to curing epoxy and tailoring sizes for lanais, patios, or tight condos. You’ll hear how they handle special requests, from team-friendly clear purses to a one-off chicken commission, and how they ship smaller pieces nationwide while keeping most orders local.

Along the way, Kevin shares simple, surprisingly effective shark tooth hunting tips—think sifters, flashlight glints, and scanning the wrack line—while Dawn talks timelines for wall art and why some designs need extra dry time. We spotlight their community involvement with the Fort Myers Beach Veterans, Women’s Club Christmas Tree Festival, What's Up FMB Alliance, and local animal rescues. If you’re new to the area, their recommendations for shelling north of the pier, dolphin and tiki tours, and warm-water summer beach days will set your itinerary. If you’re dreaming up a custom table or bar, their message is clear: bring your measurements, your vision, and your story, and they’ll craft something built to last in coastal life.

Subscribe for more Fort Myers Beach stories, share this episode with a neighbor who loves local makers, and leave a review to help others find the show.

K-Dog Custom Designs
Kevin & Dawn Lindsey
(330) 601-4316
kdogcustomdesigns@gmail.com
kdogcustomdesigns.com


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Intro/Close:

Welcome to the Fort Fire Speech Good Fair Podcast. No shade, just unchai, drama-free, positive lines only. Each episode will bring you closer to the neighbors, local legends and businesses, support local. Make Fort Fire Speech, the slice of paradise we all love. One of the I would love air joke. We are the good neighbors and businesses that allow us to share the soul of our computer with every chair, local stories, on divide island life. Here's to celebrate all the mixed Fort Fire Speech, the Slice of Paradise we all love Pull up a beach chair, Grab a Drink, make this island feel like home. Here's your host, Cabo Jim Scheller.

Cabo Jim:

Welcome, good neighbors. Today we have good neighbors Kevin and Don Lindsey from K Dog Custom Designs. Welcome.

Dawn:

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Cabo Jim:

Absolutely. I see your work everywhere around the beach. So it's finally good to have you on the show and share your story and you know let our listeners learn a little bit more about you. So for those that aren't familiar with K-Dog Custom Designs, why don't you share a little bit first about what you do?

Dawn:

You so that's you, Kevin. That's you, Kevin.

Kevin:

Oh uh, what do we got? What do we do? Uh we build, well, we started off building bars. Um actually, and it was after we started we finished a bar in our basement uh when we lived up in Ohio. Uh had some wood left over, uh, built another one. Um friends and family kept coming over and seeing what we created, and they kept telling us that you guys need to start doing this. Um, I believe we were away for the kids' basketball, uh, and I posted one of the bars that I built uh up for sale on Facebook Marketplace, and I can't even remember how many hits we had on it, but it was an absolute ton. Um and I we talked about it, and that's kind of where we started. We started building building more of those, started changing the designs, uh, and then Dawn took it to another level with uh the epoxy tops, the epoxy work that she does and all the all the other little art art pieces.

Cabo Jim:

That's kind of so do you guys have any background in in art or creating being creative? Or how how did this become? How did you make a business out of this?

Kevin:

Uh growing up, uh as kids, we were always very handy and stuff. Uh my brothers, uh, my dad um kind of did a little bit of everything. Uh work, which I uh professionally I do HBAC work, uh, and that kind of helped out, believe it or not, as far as just you know, things that I had to do on job sites uh as far as tools and uh stuff.

Cabo Jim:

In handy, right? Yes. Very cool. So how did you end up in Fort Mary's Beach?

Kevin:

Uh let's see. Uh my nephew moved down here. Uh he was actually out on a boat with us uh out in Lake Erie and he asked if we would, you know, uh if he had a he had a group of friends and he wasn't sure if he should do it or not. And we told him like you you're young, you have you know, you have job out job opportunities down here, and we're like, we're gonna end up being down there. Our original plan was the clearwater area. Uh we went there and fell in love with that. Uh, but after he moved down here, he got settled in. We came down to visit him, and this was definitely the place to be.

Cabo Jim:

Nice, nice. So from Ohio originally, correct? Yes, so no more winters, right? So you don't have to worry about snow shoveling and all that good stuff, right? I know I'm from Wisconsin, I feel the same way. It's like, yeah, no, I'm done with the cold stuff. So, you know, below 80 now, I get cold.

Kevin:

Yes, that was yesterday, it was 70, and we're freezing.

Cabo Jim:

Right, right. And meanwhile, all my friends up north are going, it's minus two up here right now.

Kevin:

Yeah, I'm like, they're getting to snow really bad this year, too.

Cabo Jim:

Yeah, it's when it snows early up there, you know it's gonna be a cold long winter. So uh we we will take our sunny beach weather. Granted, it's a little chilly, but uh we'll just stay out of the water until it warms up, right?

Dawn:

Exactly.

Cabo Jim:

So having a job on the beach sounds like a dream job, right? But you know, secondly, starting a new business is has challenges associated with it as well. Too are there some obstacles that you've gone through to get where you are today?

Kevin:

Uh I would say it was a lot of uh yeah, uh kept trying different things, uh seeing what people wanted uh and try to yeah, I don't know, adapt to that.

unknown:

Yeah.

Cabo Jim:

How long how now how long you've been doing this?

Kevin:

Five years.

Cabo Jim:

Five years, all right. So you you made it made it through Ian with with that as well, too, huh? Yeah, yes. Quite a quite a challenge with that. That's you know, for everybody. A lot, you know, the face of the beach has changed, but I love some of the stuff that you're doing because you're bringing back a lot of those memories of you know the old pier and things like that and the scenes around town. So um you guys do some great work with that.

Dawn:

So thank you.

Cabo Jim:

I love that. Yeah, source locally, right? Right, and we've got some great sand at the beach here, anyways, right? It's that nice white powdery stuff that we all love. So speaking of beaches, do you have a favorite beach?

Dawn:

Fort Myers Beach.

Cabo Jim:

Fort Myers Beach, okay. Um I want to give away your secrets, but is there someplace you go when you say we're gonna go to the beach today and we're gonna go hang out and we're gonna that would be yeah, that would be for me because I'm uh I'm addicted to Shark 2 thing. Oh, okay. All right, so you get up to Venice up there then? Yes. Very nice. Yeah, that's that's Shark Capital of the World, right? Shark 2's capital of the world.

Kevin:

Yeah. We still haven't figured out our favorite beach up there because we just probably yeah, it's we change it up every time we go up there.

Cabo Jim:

And that's that's the nice thing about Florida. You can go all over the state and find different types of beaches all over the all over the state. So we can vacation where everybody else comes or we live where everybody comes on vacations, but we get to enjoy bouncing around as well, too. So giving back to the community, you know, it's kind of a kind of a theme, especially since Ian and and working with the community. Are there certain things that you guys are involved with to help help the you know bring back the community and support the community?

Dawn:

So we donated um a table to the veterans, the Fort Myers Beach veterans. When they were doing their raffle. Um, we're part of the WhatsApp FMB Alliance. So we're always donating our time and material and whatnot to doing all the fun things like the illumination parade. We just had the um the women's club Christmas Tree Festival. Yeah. We donated a table to that. Um we just donated to the well it was Cape Coral, but the Cape Coral Animal Shelter, and then also Lonnie Kai Sandy was doing um a fundraiser for her animal shelter, and we donated a table for that. So we're always trying to help wherever we can.

Cabo Jim:

You guys are very involved. So did you find out how much the tree went for at uh the women's club?

Dawn:

I think the whole thing went for $2,300.

Cabo Jim:

Wow, wow, I and I loved I love that tree. I've I love that it was on your table, but then secondly, I love the little boxes for all the places that we kind of lost on the beach as well. Too it's kind of like a a throwback, you know. That's do you know who got that by chance? I don't know if we I don't.

Dawn:

I wish I did. I I reached out to Beach Talk Radio, but I haven't heard back.

Cabo Jim:

Right. We'll find out soon enough.

Dawn:

I want to see the picture in the person's house or wherever they put it.

Cabo Jim:

Yep, so do I. So do I. So being Fort Myers Beach, we get a lot of tourists coming here. Do you guys sell a lot to the tourists that are coming in town and ship ship to them as well?

Dawn:

I would say it's mostly locals. Uh this past Saturday we do have did have tourists come down to Margaritaville and order some stuff. Um, so we're gonna drop that off a diamond head for them on Wednesday before they fly back on Thursday. Uh but we do get a lot of orders from across the country that see our Facebook marketplace posts. So if it's small and we can ship it, we do.

Cabo Jim:

There you go. That's smart, smart, you know. Expand your your reach a little bit. So as somebody who's coming to Fort Myers Beach, are there maybe certain things that you would recommend that they go and see or go and do?

Dawn:

Oh, there's so many. I mean, we love just laying on the beach, but jet skiing and parasailing and dolphins. Yeah, the dolphin tours, the tiki tours. Checking out all these restaurants.

Cabo Jim:

Right. They keep new ones popping up every day down here. We gotta love that. And um shelling. Where do you go shelling at?

Dawn:

Oh, usually to the north of the pier is the best little cute shells that we find, I would say.

Cabo Jim:

Really? Okay.

Dawn:

Yeah.

Cabo Jim:

Yeah, because you can't have too big for what you guys do, right?

Dawn:

Right. Yeah, yeah, we need very little shells, so we've always had good luck over there.

Kevin:

The big ones are gotta go out to Santa Bell. We we definitely get to go along for a lot of walks from the beach.

Cabo Jim:

That's the perk of living down here by the beach, right? Now, are you guys living on the beach or are you guys also off the beach? Where are you guys there?

Kevin:

Uh no, we're we're in uh southwest Cape Coral.

Cabo Jim:

Oh, that's right. Okay, that's right.

Kevin:

We're with no traffic, we're 25 minutes away from the beach.

Cabo Jim:

Yeah, but with traffic. Yes.

Kevin:

Well, it's not actually it hasn't been bad. We know what times to leave, right?

Cabo Jim:

See, you're telling you time it right, but yeah, sometimes it's quicker to go by boat from Cape Coral than it is to drive because you can just cut the angle, right?

Kevin:

Uh well, it actually took us longer. We did that a couple times, and it did take us, it took us really quite a bit longer.

Cabo Jim:

Yeah, from where we are.

Kevin:

Yeah, from where we are.

Cabo Jim:

Okay, okay. It's you know, all of Southwest Florida continues to grow and it keeps growing. So, you know, we kind of welcome people down here and welcome the traffic, you know. So we wait till summer and then we go visit the beach because there's nobody there. That's the best time of the year, anyways, because I like my water warm. It's gonna be close to 90 to get in. So is there something about I don't know, uh Fort Myers Beach that you'd like to to share with our listeners on on why they should come down here and you know what they should be looking to do?

Kevin:

I would say the the the people, the locals. It's uh absolutely great group of people. Uh and I it seems like everybody's here to have a you know good time and and enjoy it.

Cabo Jim:

Yep, we get a we get a quite the mix of people down here, you know, a lot of Midwesterners, obviously, uh yourselves and myself included, but uh we get a lot of people from all over the place. So it's always nice to you know to meet people you never know who you're gonna belly up to a bar and sit next to and start a conversation with. And you could be total strangers when you walk in, but by the time you're leaving your best friends, and that's the nice thing that that makes Fort Myers Beach kind of special in that sense that you know anybody can talk to anybody, you know. Definitely. Um, so you mentioned being on the beach a little bit, but uh owning your own business can be very demanding, and then Kevin working another job as well. Too uh, what do you do when you get a moment of free time? What's your favorite thing to do?

Dawn:

Go to the beach.

Kevin:

Right, right. Yeah, I guess that's our uh that's our relaxing. Oh, Don usually lays back, sits back, and I'll do that a little bit. But if we go, if we do go up north, um water looking for the looking for the shark's teeth.

Cabo Jim:

Right. And and any you know, any suggestions for people that that look for stuff like that? What's the easiest way? What's the tools they need to to be able to go out in the water and look for that stuff?

Kevin:

Uh it's the uh uh crab, uh oh, crab the crab sifter. Uh but I've actually seen people even with uh just using a uh uh uh strainer from like a dollar store.

Cabo Jim:

Really?

Kevin:

And they go out there, whatever, and they'll scoop them. Uh you can go right along the water, you look right where all the uh little pieces of she little pieces of shells are. Uh you see something black, uh take a look at it. Um I have heard I've never tried it, but at night, if you take a flashlight with you, uh the shark's teeth are supposed to shine.

unknown:

Right.

Kevin:

I've never tried that, uh, but I have heard that that is a thing.

Cabo Jim:

Interesting.

Kevin:

What's the biggest one you ever found? Uh what's that?

Cabo Jim:

What's the biggest one you ever found?

Kevin:

I found it's probably about close to four-inch makeledon. Wow. It's not it's not perfect, but it's uh it's it's pretty darn close.

Cabo Jim:

It's a nice one. It's that it's crazy how many people find these again and again and again. I mean, there's so many of them out there, right?

Kevin:

It's it's it is insane. Every time I go, I just it's hard for me to uh think about how many of them that I get, and then all the people that I you know see see that get them on some of the Facebook groups. Um and then also the people that I'm you know out there with. You can see all the ones that they're they're getting. It's just amazing to me that there's that many of them out there.

Cabo Jim:

Right. And then you're incorporating a lot of those into your your artwork and pieces as well, too.

Dawn:

Uh actually today I um one of the orders for Wednesday that I have to drop off a diamond head, they wanted a shark with shark's teeth in it. So I was working on that today.

Cabo Jim:

Very nice. Very nice. Now, how long does it typically take you to to do a do a piece?

Dawn:

Um, the wall art, it depends on what it is. This particular kind, um, probably about two days with dry time and everything.

Cabo Jim:

Okay.

Dawn:

Um just a picture of uh a shark, you know, and shark's teeth. So it's fairly simple, but it still takes a little bit of time.

Cabo Jim:

Creativeness to lay it outright and have the right colors and all that stuff, right? Yeah. What's your favorite piece you've done?

Dawn:

Oh gosh, I don't know. Honestly, that I think the table that we just donated for the women's club.

Cabo Jim:

Right. I do like that.

Dawn:

We've been wanting to do the the peer for so long, and uh Todd was gracious enough to let us use his artwork to put on there to get a high enough resolution to make something that big.

Cabo Jim:

Yeah.

Dawn:

So between that and the little side table that we made with his graphic on it, it's uh they're just stunning. And now Chester, I we talked to Chester on the beach, and we're gonna do a picture with his artwork in it on the on a table.

Cabo Jim:

Very cool. See, incorporating all the locals and all the good stuff, and I love it. I love it. Yeah, that that pure pure table was beautiful. I I just uh I might have to get one, is that what I'm thinking? For sure.

Dawn:

We can custom make it for your size and shape and colors.

Cabo Jim:

There you go. Gotta add a little cabo in there somewhere. That's all I ask, right?

Dawn:

Absolutely.

Cabo Jim:

So is there one thing that you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they wouldn't be too familiar with?

Dawn:

I would say the customization. Um, most people don't know that we make anything other than what they see at a market or on Facebook, but um, if you see anything, just kind of open your mind and think of what you would want in your space. And we can make it to your customization, your specs. You know, some people can only have a three-foot bar based on their size of their lanai, or some people want a ten-foot bar, or some people want a little bit of this wood and that wood, you know, or wall art. If we haven't made exactly what you want, like somebody asked me the other day for a chicken. Well, yeah, I haven't made a chicken because I kind of specialized in the beach and whatnot, but I can make a chicken or a hen or you know the roosters, uh Key West, right? Yeah, right. Yeah.

Cabo Jim:

I heard I heard somebody told me the other day that somebody tried to introduce those down here after Ian.

Kevin:

And that was like I haven't I didn't get to see them. I didn't get to hear the stories uh of that.

Cabo Jim:

Crazy, crazy. They're nice except first thing in the morning. I really don't want to be hearing that. Well, very so how would Alyssa go by contacting you if they wanted to learn more and see some of your artwork?

Dawn:

Well, we kind of have two Facebook pages just because of the restrictions um on a business page, but we're under K Dog Custom Designs. That's the business page, but the one we're able to do a little bit more on is called K Dog Merchandise Merchandising. And then our website is www.kdog custom designs.com.

Cabo Jim:

Very good, very good. Love it. Any last words for our listeners today?

Dawn:

Look forward to any orders that anybody wants with Port Mars Beach San and Shells or not.

Cabo Jim:

Or something else, right? Yeah, right? Just let your mind be free and you'll design it. You'll be well, you'll help them design it and you help them build it. I love it.

Kevin:

We did have to we did have to build a uh a Steelers bar once. Uh oh. Oh, and we're Cleveland Browns. Actually, we have stuff in the Cleveland area, Cleveland Browns, but we did have to build a Steelers bar. Actually, that was the last one we uh built. That was the last bar we built before we moved.

Cabo Jim:

Wow, wow, and then well, down here you get requests for everything, right? I'm sure that's where you're from, what team you're for, you know. I'm in Wisconsin, so you get the Packers up there, right? But uh you get everybody else.

Dawn:

I started making the purses because they're basically see-through, so you can take in the games. I got all kinds of orders for all different teams.

Cabo Jim:

Really? Yeah, that's right. They started that where the bags had to be clear now, right? To get in and you can see everything.

Dawn:

Certain size, yeah, a certain size, so it it fits. Almost every rule that I could find.

Cabo Jim:

Until they came to meet the right. Like they always do. Well, very good. Um it's been a pleasure getting to know you guys, and uh I love your artwork, and uh thank you for being on. I know you guys weren't exactly comfortable, you know, but um you guys were great, and I appreciate your time today, and I hope to see you at the beach. We need to do a beach, right? All right. Take care.

Intro/Close:

Thanks for tuning in to the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor podcast. If you loved what you heard, share it with a friend and keep the good vibes going. Until next time, remember to cobble until you wobbo and keep being a good neighbor. Also, to nominate your favorite neighbors, local legends, heroes, or local businesses to be off the show. Go to fmbgoodneighbor.com. That's fmbgoodneighbor.com or call 239-4274100. You want to send out some island love to Eric tibbs from Edward Jones, State Insurance USA, the Tiki Pub Fort Myers Beach, Current Riders FMB. They are the good neighbors and businesses that allow us to share the soul of our community with every listener, from local stories to the positive vibe of island life. Here's to celebrating all that makes Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love.