How an Art School Grad became a Specialist in Historic House Renovations

Audio Transcription

Mark Lamberth
So for today’s podcast guest, we have Alfred Loman, who’s from Westchester, Pennsylvania, and I’ve been learning more about his story, really interesting from art school. He’s got a cool background of traveling. He is a craftsman taking a look at a lot of his stuff at the work he’s been doing there in Pennsylvania. So excited to have you. Thank you for being here, Alfred.

Alfred Lohmann
Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah, fantastic. So yeah, man, I took a look at your story and take a look at your website and the work that you guys are doing. I noticed something pretty interesting that I thought I would just start off with here on your website. Pretty awesome, man. So it says, it all started in a 300 year old farm villa in the south of France when I was asked by my friends to help them restore, restore the large wooden arched gate to their courtyard. And I was totally hooked after that. Maybe that’s a good intro just to tell us about kind of the story of Alfred Lowman and the restoration work you guys are doing these days.

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Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, no, I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, so I went to art school and graduated from the Corcoran School of Art down in DC and most art school graduates, you graduate and you wander around a bit and just trying to figure out life and what you wanted to do. And I’ve always loved working with my hands. I was never much of a student, although I wouldn’t say school bored me, but I just wasn’t like a bookish guy. And so I had provided for myself, put myself through school, through house painting and moved back home, got into house painting again and just had a killer summer profited really well. And my now brother-in-Law was working with me at the time, and he had this great 1978 west ly bus, VW bus, and we made a killing this summer and we were like, you know what? We’re going to go crazy. We’re going to drive out west, we’re going to make it rich, and either the oil fields or we’re going to drive up to Alaska and get a job on a canning boat or something. And just, we were young and dumb, totally young and dumb. And so long story short, the transmission on the bus blew up. And so

Alfred Lohmann
Of course, of course. So I was stuck with a wad of cash and nowhere to go and I really was wanting for an adventure. And so some family friends had reached out who were living in the uk. They had moved and bought this farm villa down in the south of France and just randomly offered like, Hey, would you be willing to come down for a spell and exchange room and board for maybe some work? And I was just, yeah, great opportunity just to backpack around Europe for a little bit. And so that’s what they did. And just the last time I really picked up any hand tools of any sort was sculpture class at Corcoran. And they said, well, we have this problem here and we have this beautiful arch door. And what was interesting about the villa was had an open courtyard that the doors led into, and on one side you have the house and the other side of the door is you have this huge brick oven, bread oven, it’s massive.

Alfred Lohmann
And they really wanted to make the door something special and they said, Hey, we don’t know how to repair this. Maybe you can figure something out. And so they just left me to the task and I just enjoyed the process of it. I enjoyed the creative challenges of just trying to figure it out and a monster was created after that. So since then, most of my, I think what turns me on the most about what I do is it really boils down to creative problem solving. It’s a combination of just working with my hands, but also being presented a problem or a situation that needs to be resolved visually or creatively. And so that’s, like I said, a monster was born.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. And that was over 20 years ago.

Alfred Lohmann
Time. Yeah, that was back in 98. That was back in 98.

Mark Lamberth
Okay, love it. So I mean, you went to art school, you spent time in France, you lived in Uganda for a little bit. I mean, you’ve traveled, you’ve been around. How has your art background affected the way that you approach construction? I mean, you do a lot of amazing restoration work, beautiful photos, timber frame, classic multi-year, a hundred old buildings. How does the art tap into this and how does being a remodeler and a restoration artist, how does that fit into your background of art?

Alfred Lohmann
I appreciate asking that. That’s a good question. One of the things that was interesting about the school I went to, and I don’t think I appreciated it at the time, but they were heavy on the process. So their deal was, I guess they were trying to be practical, but their deal was, okay, we’re going to make you into an artist where you go from not having body work to a full-blown body of work and we’re going to show you the steps, how to do that. So it was a lot of process oriented teaching. How do you literally go from zero to 60 with a body of work and everything? And that’s what I realized about myself is that I’m a real process oriented person. So it’s not about here are the blueprints, let me build the building as fast as possible. It’s been more of, yeah, let me do the build out. But the way in which I do it, the process in which I take is really important to me. I love what I do and in part of loving what I do is the process that it takes. So it goes from eating, even from the planning stage, even the estimating part actually kind of like to just the actual crafting of it and the finishing of whatever project that’s set before me.

Alfred Lohmann
It’s been a strange evolvement I’d say for a long time. Long story short, I graduated school, I got into painting, house painting, got exposed to carpentry, did a little bit of landscape work with my now Father-in-Law. And when it came to choosing what I actually wanted to do, I had to make a career choice. I was literally, I think I’ll be a carpenter with Yellow Pages and just found a random company to work for. They sound kind of cool for years, I think I wrestled with, well, why did I go to art school? Or what was the purpose of all that? What was the plan for me there? But I think as I’ve, my career slowly drifted more into working in older homes, more of the preservation trades, more of the restoration side, I’m really understanding and pulling from a lot of what I learned at art school, a lot of the process that was interesting.

Mark Lamberth
Okay.

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Wow, amazing. Great. And then, I mean, do you have a crew? What’s the size of your crew? Is it just you the team look like right now?

Alfred Lohmann
So we’re pretty, it fluctuates probably most guys like seasonally. So we’ll have a little bit more of a robust crew in the spring and summertime. And then wintertime, it gets scaled back. So prior to this year, I’d always had casual workers, summertime guys, subcontractors that I would link arms with for help laboring or whatever. This year was a larger turn for our company where we made a commitment in hiring two full-time guys. And then just kind of serendipitously, we have kind of a part-time guy in the mix as well. So I never wanted to be really intentional in how I built out. I mean, first and foremost, I’ve been married for maybe 24 years. I got four daughters. So obviously providing for my family is kind of clutch. I got a bunch of kids in college and grad school and kind of all over the place.

Alfred Lohmann
So got a lot of bills, right? Wedding coming up, got stuff I got to pay for. So that’s always, having a small footprint has always been really important to me as far as my business. But then this year I just felt more, as my business really shifted more towards preservation and restoration, I really felt like I wanted to take on guys. But not just, lemme just hire guys for the sake of hiring them, but let me take them on slowly and more intentionally with the desire to really train them up as craftsmen, as carpenters, not just worker bees, but guys who are literally taking on a trade, taking on a craft and being able to grow in that more. And in some ways, just more of, I guess an old school view of an apprenticeship or something.

Mark Lamberth
And I kind of got that just looking at your site, I mean sort of the vibe of the site, the photos, we take a look at a lot of different sites and with builders and stuff, and you really represent your work well with photos. And I can see really kind of feel the artistry there. And I can imagine that your reputation and what you’ve already created in the community and the work that you take on, it looks like you’re maybe very choosy about that. And so I imagine the guys that you’re working with too, you really want to get in and work with guys that are committed and that are going to do really high quality craftsmen level work.

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, I mean, you don’t really, so I would say that the trades necessarily, at least what I do, really isn’t for everybody. So carpentry has morphed into something where, and this is not a on any other carpenters are out there or any remodelers, but carpentry really has taken on more of, it’s a trade of installation. So carpenters are no longer making something. They’re actually taking something that’s already been manufactured and installing it. So there was a process in which they’re falling to install that thing properly through code or whatever. So nobody’s really making a door anymore. Nobody’s really making a window. People are buying that. Guys are just learning how to install that. And so with my guys, all my stuff, all this work we do is it’s heavily into hand tools. So I mean, some guys just have good hands, some guys, some guys can totally be taught to have what I call sensitive hands, hands that are able to respond to the tool, respond to the material. Some guys, they just fall right into it so easily. Other guys, God bless ’em, you know what I mean? And it’s not trying.

Alfred Lohmann
And it’s like I’ve had seasons where I’ve had guys who are an absolute blessing and I love ’em, but it’s like, man, you know what? This probably isn’t the path for you. And that’s okay. I mean, but with the two guys that I have now, one is my nephew who’s actually living with us, and I’ve been working with him and talking with him about entering into the trades for a couple of years now. He’s just the right kind of kid. Graduated high school, smart kid, wasn’t really interested in school, but hard worker, good with his hands, has a level of creativity that’s just beautiful and just a real heart and desire to learn and to grow. And coupled with a real curiosity about stuff. And the other guy I have, he’s a little bit older, been around a little bit, but also too, really loves working with his hands. More of a physical guy. And both have been just great. They’ve been super humble and just really, really easy to teach and train.

Alfred Lohmann
Taking guys on who’ve literally, they’ve never done any of this stuff before. They really haven’t really worked with tools before. I’ve had to price things accordingly and I pay them accordingly. But that’s kind of coupled into also we’re trying to do meet monthly outside of work where grab some coffee, grab some bagels, go back from the shop, be more intentional about learning a skill, you know what I mean? Apply that later on. I throw videos, I throw articles at my guys, I throw books at my guys just looking any opportunity to grow them and to jumpstart their passion for carpentry and what we do. Yeah,

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. I love it. And you said that for a while. You’re doing new house construction and you said you didn’t like it. What were some thoughts on that? Why didn’t that fit into your style?

Alfred Lohmann
It could have been, well, you know what? Part of the thing, and it’s one of the reasons why I went into business for myself, but frankly, if you’re, what we do as a remodeler, as a general contractor, it’s a service industry, right? Service industry. If you don’t like serving people, you probably shouldn’t do this. And I know a lot of guys who are great with their hands, good with tools, but they just really don’t like people. It’s like, man, join the union, get into commercial work, you’ll be fine, right? But the day-to-day and just truly having a heart to just genuinely care for people. I meet clients all the time personally, my typical client is millennial or a little bit older and higher income bracket, purchase an older home. They’re really into their house, really into the history of their house. And they want to hire somebody who’s as interest in their house as they are. And I do, I look at going into people’s homes as like, Hey, man, this is, you go into somebody’s master bathroom, that’s like a sacred space, you know what I mean?

Mark Lamberth
Yeah,

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, right. Anyway, that’s like the holy of holies with somebody’s house. You know what I mean?

Mark Lamberth
Yeah, exactly.

Alfred Lohmann
So I totally respect that. And I felt with the new home construction, it was real assembly line. It was definitely, and there’s a place for it, but it was definitely profits over people and working with different companies, whether it’s a remodeler or a new home construction or distant with a commercial construction, sometimes, I don’t know. I didn’t like the way that the customer was treated. I didn’t, it was wasn’t about creating a home, it was about creating a product that somebody’s going to buy. And you live in a capitalistic society, I get it. It’s like you have that, but there’s something about people’s homes that there’s this deeper intrinsic value there that people are going to spend time and have families and grow old and pass away and all these things. And there’s something very special about that. And seeing that glow in a new home buyer and they’re buying their first fixerupper, and that’s kind of like a special thing.

Alfred Lohmann
And I felt like there’s something that was kind of lost. And some of the new home markets that I was in, once again, it’s totally not trashing new home market, but maybe it was with the folks I was working with or my bosses, whatever. But I just felt, I didn’t feel like there was this real care, there was a care there originally, but because it was a mentality of bigger, better, faster, somehow that care of downplayed and deflated and wasn’t as important. And it became okay on each house, how can we save X amount of dollars on each of these processes so that we can profit more? You know what I mean? So it

Alfred Lohmann
Took that, and even with someone’s talking, the site managers or subs on site, everybody had a little bit of a disdain for the person who’s actually buying the house, which is like, guys, these are the people that are actually paying for what we do, right? Yeah. It was just like, and I get it. I totally get it. It’s just the world we live in. But it was just like, you know what? Not for me. I want to have in my business, we’re looking to build community with our clients, not just sell a job, sell a job, sell a job. We’re looking at, yeah, just creating a community. I want, I enjoy serving my clients. I do a lot of pro bono stuff for them just to serve them and help them out. I mean, yeah, that’ll generate into a job or a sale or something, but my reputation is important to me, but it’s like you have to just kind love that, love serving people. You know what I mean? That’s just an important thing. Right.

Mark Lamberth
That’s amazing, man. And I get that. I can feel that, and I can see that from the stuff that you’re doing. So you’ve got a beautiful family of four girls that looks like they’re all more or less grown. You’re married. How have you balanced having a big family and having young girls, and how have you balanced having a family and having a construction business at the same time over the

Alfred Lohmann
Years? That’s a good question. I don’t know a lot of grace. Do whatever you got to do. Well, you know what? I was really, really fortunate when early on when the girls were little, I worked for a small family company and my boss was great. He was fantastic, and he was a family man, and really promoted that with us as guys. So if we needed time off or little extra space or there’s definitely grace there for when we’re a little bit late. Somebody was up late at night or somebody was teething or whatever.

Alfred Lohmann
That was always the thing. The family always came first, which I appreciated. And I guess as I’ve grown in my career, as my career is taking up more of my time, and the girls are definitely in a spot where, okay, they’re growing up. They don’t need me as much anymore as they used to. So I’m glad. So my youngest right now, she’s 15. My oldest is, she’ll be 23 later this month. So we’re in a spot now where it’s okay. They’re more independent, they’re kind of got their own lives, they’re doing stuff, jobs, grad school, college, actually two in Arizona, two year in Westchester. So it’s actually been a good timing for me to start my own business. I think if I were to do my own business, I think if I had it years ago when the girls were little, I don’t know if I could do it, just not because of the demand of work, but it’s the amount that I want to put into it just because I enjoy it so much. I have no problem getting up at five o’clock in the morning and having my little routine, then slide right into do an estimate or tweaking spreadsheets or whatever, or reading an article or learning a new skill or build or whatever. I have time and space right now to devote that, where early on it was just a season for a reason, a family, honestly, I wasn’t able to really contribute as much into the career.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, full house. Okay. Well, fantastic. Well, regarding the services that you do, I know you do a lot of restoration work. It looks like it’s kind of a mix. Are there some areas of the business that are more profitable or that you like doing those jobs more? Looks like maybe more folks on the window restoration here last few years? I mean, what areas that you’re doing work the best for you, and are you looking to, I don’t know, grow that, if that comes along?

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, no. So starting out, it was really just a full service general contractor, just typical kitchen and bathroom remodeling, whole house remodeling, that sort of thing mean. And that’s always, anytime you are acting as purely a general contractor, it’s always more profitable. I liken it to you have, if you’re, you have a business portfolio and an investment portfolio, you’re not all investing into one thing. You have a bunch of investments and some are going to do good, some are going to do poor. But all in all, hopefully end of the year are profitable. So for me, running a general contracting company, we’re able to spread out those wins and losses throughout the trades. And so I do doing bigger projects. I do camping out on somebody’s property for a while, and one, it just makes the administrative work a lot easier. I mean, I think a lot of guys would probably say the admin work they do for a small job is probably about as much as they do with a larger job.

Alfred Lohmann
It was interesting. For whatever reason, this past year, there are a bunch of big jobs that just fell through at the last minute for whatever reason. And I got back into window restoration, and that just really, really blew up. I think we were talking earlier, it really took over about 80% of my business, and those were great. I like it. My guys love ’em. It’s really chill work. It’s a chill pace, it’s very detail oriented, but it could be anywhere between a 10 to a $70,000 job, depending on the size of the house and how many windows. So it’s a smaller job. So profit margins are smaller, and then it’s just rinse, repeat. You’re just doing more of those throughout the year, whereas a larger whole house remodel or something that’s going to run half a million dollars or a quarter million dollars, you’re kind of camping out for several months. You’re able to hit a nice relaxed stride with that. And with the jobs that profit margins are always higher. It just by a matter of scale.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. And I mean, you’re all set up for millwork, so you do all of that offsite. I mean, there’s still plenty, but you’re cleaning out channel, you’re doing different work on the house. And if you’re doing a window restoration, does that happen onsite or mostly offsite back at your shop?

Alfred Lohmann
Happens offsite? The funny thing is, is that when I started my business, I was small footprint and my shop was really small for a while. I was renting small shop space, kind of got kicked out of that out of the blue and was literally forced to build something on my property. So luckily, we have a little bit of property here. And so just over the course of a month, I just basically threw together a shop, just someplace to house all my tools. I mean, I literally had a beach cabana with all my tools underneath of it and trying to keep the rain off of it and stuff. So we built a shop that’s small, and I guess it was last summer, I took on a restoration project for St. Mary’s Church on Ardmore. They had this portico, it had been hit by a truck, literally pulled and yanked off the church facade.

Specialization is a great way to set yourself apart. Alfred took this route and so do many other Contractors.

Alfred Lohmann
So architects and engineers came out and said, okay, this needs to be completely taken apart. Every piece restored and then reassembled back on site. And the general contractor I was working with, it was like, Hey, this has all got to be done off site. I was like, all right, great. So I didn’t know what to do. This is way larger than my shop could handle. So ended up buying a 20 by 20 event tent, putting in a false floor, so big think big wedding tent. So I bought one of those for 800 bucks and just had fans running, put a false floor in, and we were off to the races, and my wife was like, yeah, how long are you going to have that up? I’m like, nah, just probably a couple months. It’ll be no big deal. So yeah, we’re literally still working out of that to the point where we just actually just took out a small loan and we’re actually building a larger 1400 square foot shop in a few weeks on the property, but

Mark Lamberth
Amazing. They were at your place.

Alfred Lohmann
Yep, yep. Yeah, which

Mark Lamberth
Is great. Dude, dream come true. 1400 square feet. I

Alfred Lohmann
Love it. Literally, commute is awesome. It’s fantastic.

Mark Lamberth
Oh, man.

Alfred Lohmann
And once again, we’re trying to do it in a way where it’s like, all right, we’re building value into our property. Once again, I think shop space in Westchester is, it’s a little bit over $2 a square foot. So for the size I would rent, I’m going to have something paid off within a year or two. You know what I mean? Amazing. So with that being said, with a lot of the millwork, I do, I have a partnership with my brother-in-Law. They have a fantastic, they’re Westchester Woodworks and Komorowski Construction. They have a fantastic millwork. They’ve done historic profiles for me and just do a fantastic job. So when I can’t handle it in my shop, I just definitely send it to those guys. So a lot of the stuff we do create, so for the windows and doors, they’re small runs, so there might be five or 10 linear feet. So we’ve actually began to collect old hand tools, old plow planes, old molding planes. So we do a lot of stuff by hand because a lot of the moldings we have, you can’t buy a router bit or you can’t buy a shape or bit across the board. Everything has to be specially made. So what I’m finding is a lot of the period, the historic planes and stuff, they match exactly the time period in which we’re repairing.

Mark Lamberth
Amazing. That is

Alfred Lohmann
Awesome. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Yeah, so it’s been a pretty rad experience. Yeah,

Mark Lamberth
I love it. I’ve done a lot of construction myself way back in the day. I mean, we did some hand plan work and some restoration stuff, and it’s been a long time, but man, it’s all dear to my heart. I love all that. And going to garage sales and going different places, finding the old planes, man, it’s just so beautiful little tool.

Alfred Lohmann
Right, right. Exactly right.

Mark Lamberth
Sharpen it up. Amazing. Fantastic. Cool. And then, I mean, regarding the business where it’s at now, just curious for folks that we talk with, folks that are in the process of growing, we talk with business owners, construction business owners, all across the board, and some really want to grow and some pretty much don’t want to grow. They’re kind of like we’re right where we want be. And a big thing that I’ve heard a lot is just sort of hiring. It’s tough to find guys these days, and I think maybe with the restoration type stuff that you’re doing in the just deep craftsmanship, do you think about growing even? Does that matter to you? And if not, what’s your philosophy around staying the size that you are and kind of being in the sweet spot that works for you?

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, no, it is something I think of a lot about, I’m very much a hands-on person, so I’m definitely owner operator. I’m definitely mentoring and training my guys, but it’s one of those things where there is a responsibility in taking on employees and especially doing what we do. So I’m not looking at as hiring employees as a means to an end, so we can just do the work to pay our bills or whatever. So I’m aware that I’m giving these guys a career and whether they choose to take it or not, that’s not up to me. That’s up to them when I’m giving ’em their career and while I have them, I do want to be responsible as far as being in a position where I can offer them incremental increases, merit base increases. I’m putting together kind of like a skills merit list where it’s like, all right, this guy’s able to do these certain tasks, he’s able to do these certain things.

Alfred Lohmann
Well, you know what? That makes him into this pay level, this pay grade. I don’t want their increases to be just arbitrary just because another year has passed. But in that being said, I want to grow my business responsibly so that we have the volume of work, we have the caliber of work coming in that would provide growth to my guys, not just professionally, but also just having them earn a living wage and that sort of thing. That being said, so I think there’s ethical, there’s a holistic care that I’m trying to really wrap my mind around as far as how do I grow this? How do I want to govern this engine so that yeah, we’re just not taking every job that comes down the pike, you know what I mean? But we’re rolling out work that comes in at a good pace. We’re developing our reputation.

Alfred Lohmann
The other thing is what I’ve noticed with my clientele, so I think I mentioned earlier, a lot of my clientele is millennials and a little bit older, and what I’m seeing is a lot of my clientele cross the board, so they’re stalking me cross media, so they see that I’m a member of, they look on Window Preservation Alliance that I’m a member of. They look at my website, they vet me on Facebook, they vet me on Instagram, they might check out my LinkedIn. I mean, they’re kind of all over me. You know what I mean? Definitely.

Alfred Lohmann
And it’s happened with the past two clients of mine that have signed where, oh, I really like it when you did this job back at this. So they’re telling me about Post I did a couple years ago on Instagram or Facebook. I’m like, oh wow, okay. In that ways, certain things like that have been great tools for me. It just seems like with nowadays, it’s like that age group, those folks, they want somebody genuine. They don’t want somebody ingenuine. And a lot of my clients are looking for to have a relationship with their contractor. They just bought this period house. They know they want to do a bunch of projects. They can’t afford to do everything all at once, but they want me and they want to have a relationship with me while they’re at that property and me to learn their house and help them to reach their goals of what they want in their interior and exterior and stuff. So it’s been really interesting in that sense. But all those social media and the website and everything, it really helps to just kind of, I guess, verify who I am as well as Instagram and Facebook have been great as just a constant portfolio that’s constantly getting updated and people like to see that. People like to see my journey as well, which is kind crazy.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. I saw you’ve been a lot more active on LinkedIn, looks like here the last little bit, posting a lot more and getting a lot more of your jobs up, and it’s cool

Alfred Lohmann
To see that. I don’t know. I think, to be honest with you, I have bandwidth for maybe two avenues of social media, and it’s been primarily Facebook and Instagram. That’s been kind of okay, that’s fine. They kind of work tandem. I get way more responses and feedback and everything from Instagram, LinkedIn. It’s one of those things where I feel like it’s like grownups Facebook, you know what I mean? So it’s like grownups Facebook, and I guess it’s just to verify me even more. I have some work colleagues that are on LinkedIn, so I’m not as active on there as I am with Instagram. Instagram. I’ve definitely gotten jobs off of Instagram. I’ve definitely gotten connected with other people in the preservation trades. Really interesting community there. That’s been actually fantastic resource. You know what I mean? So for me, my business Instagram has been kind of huge, pretty huge thing, so

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. Okay, man. Do you ever, with the level of craftsmanship that you’re doing, and you probably have a lot of opportunities that come along, do you ever say, I think this job or the way that this thing is kind of coming to me maybe isn’t right for what we’re trying to do? Maybe it’s a little too, I dunno, corporate or you’re talking about some of the somewhat more soulless, different types of construction that maybe are around, I mean do ever, I’m just curious because it’s been coming up some actually for us where we talk to folks, actually, I’m not sure that this is exactly with the culture that we’re trying to create here. Does that ever come up with you much? I mean, probably a lot of your jobs are by referrals and it’s like a cool network that you’re already working inside of, but you ever have to turn down work because it’s just not the right culture fit.

Alfred Lohmann
Oh yeah, definitely a hundred percent. I would say early on, because I’ve been in the industry for a long time and I was known in this area, so it was easy in some ways of just getting started. And for a while I was able to really kind pick and choose the work I wanted to do. I was nimble. I had a very small business footprint, you know what I mean? Just me very load to no overhead, which was by design so that I could really kind craft what I wanted to do and go after the work I wanted to go after. This year in some ways was slow and I had to say yes to a lot of stuff that I maybe normally wouldn’t have said yes to. It worked out, it paid the bills. But I think people who look at my stuff and they see my stuff, whether on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, and they see, okay, he might not be the right guy to do a vanilla box fit out in the mall. I don’t see any drywall in any of his posts, so he might not,

Mark Lamberth
Yeah.

Alfred Lohmann
You know what I mean?

Mark Lamberth
Where’s the drywall and the metal studs? And

Alfred Lohmann
I think a lot of that is just, I think in some ways is in this day and age, how do, especially a small business person, how do you become known and how do you draw in the kind of work that you want? That’s always a question I’m asking myself because at the same time, I definitely don’t want to turn on the fire hose. You could easily do that, and then you’re just spending a ton of time fielding calls and vetting ’em out and okay, yeah, we’re not going to do that. We’re definitely not going to do that job. That’s not us. There are times when I get to talk to those people and I point ’em in another direction. I don’t mind doing that because once again, we’re a service industry. It’s just good for the trades. But yeah, I have no problem saying no to people.

Mark Lamberth
Interesting. Yeah. Awesome. And then regarding your business now, I mean, where does most of your business come from? I know you’ve got a new website here the last couple of years. You’ve got a lot of Instagram posting going on some Facebook, some LinkedIn, inevitably a lot of referrals and things happening. I mean, you guys have got a perfect five star reviews on Google Business profile. Where do you find the most of your work comes from these days?

Alfred Lohmann
A lot of it is word of mouth. A lot of it being a member of the Window Preservation Alliance has been huge networking there. That’s been fantastic. I think even just reaching out to other local businesses that are either step ahead of me, like I’ve been developing a relationship with another local builder, real highend. They do beautiful work. A company called Pine Mar done a job with them just once again, it’s like I look at it as having a good financial portfolio. You’re investing a little time here, a little time there, a little time there. Just fostering different relationships, fostering a little bit stuff on social media, a little stuff with maybe some organizations you’re involved in. I just became a member of the Association of Preservation Technologies, Delaware Valley chapter where it’s just a group of professionals working in the preservation trades opportunity to network, opportunity to grow. So all those things really have at least contributed to me and just in generating work, a bunch of architects I’ve gotten to know a recently who are passionate about restoration work. I went to a linseed oil paint seminar put on by Elegy Build and Builders and Earth and Flax, two great local companies. They’re doing work in this area. And it’s great just always getting together with like-minded people and with the preservation and stuff, there is a spirit of collaboration that you don’t see, I think in other traditional areas of remodeling and building.

Alfred Lohmann
And one thing I love about this trade is that people are always giving each other shout outs. And I love that. I have no problem promoting my brother-in-Law, who’s also a carpenter. I have no problem promoting my other brother-in-Law, an electrician. Kaki Electrical Services is fantastic. My nephew is a plumber. Clark’s Plumbing Services. I have no problem when I do a post and I do a bill with them, give ’em a shout out, you know what I mean? And give them credit credit’s due because it is a collaborative effort and you’d be surprised how much business comes my way just through that. So just having that spirit of collaboration and just humility and just people want to be a part of what you’re doing and it’s pretty cool. Yeah,

Mark Lamberth
That’s fantastic, man. The Window Preservation Alliance, I saw that you’re part of that. You talked about that when you’re getting, you said that being a part of that has brought in a fair amount of new work. I mean, that wouldn’t be from necessarily retail folks that are attending that. Is this from other builders who you’re kind of collaborating with? Or are there folks that are attending this seeming kind of association, maybe looking for someone to do some restoration work for them?

Alfred Lohmann
So I didn’t really know this before, but people who buy an old house are really into their windows. It’s like a legit thing. It’s like people say that the windows are the soul of a house, and it’s really true, and people get waxed poetic about it all the time. But I mean, there is a huge movement of old home buyers and people are like old homes who just are really into their windows. That’s a big thing. And they are. They’re really, really cool. And there’s been, it kind of taps on everything. It taps on people’s sense of history. There’s a lot of skill craftsmanship that is involved with it. There’s a whole lot of conspiracy stuff too, when you get into post World War II construction windows and the vinyl window movement and how they’re trying to take over the wood windows. I mean, it’s like interesting. Vinyl window companies are trying to make it an appliance where you swap our windows out every five years. And so there’s a lot of, it’s kind of funny. People go crazy. Some people think window preservation’s a cult. I would deny that.

Alfred Lohmann
But what’s been interesting is so those homeowners will look on the site, so the sites create and it’s like, oh, okay, I’m Pennsylvania, and me and a bunch of other guys will pop up, and I guess they just call us. And then what has been the bonus for me is that, oh, you’re a general contractor as well. I mean, there are guys, there’s a colleague of mine, a guy’s named Adam Butler of iconic Windows. He’s just up the road. He’s booked out for two years on Windows, and he’s got 16 employees, two years. He’s booked out 16 employees. Man, the guy’s grinding it out, does beautiful work, total giver, awesome guy. Amazing. Yeah, and he’s the one actually turned me on to the group. He’s like, dude, there’s totally room in this area. And I’m like, great. I mean, I was looking at Windows just as a way just to present my services to people because it’s going to be easier to sell somebody on a $10,000 job or $25,000 job versus a $250, I mean $250,000 job, a larger remodel, whatever.

Alfred Lohmann
People usually have 10 to $15,000, at least in our area, ready to spend on an investment on their older home. And windows are real good area that people love to invest in. And that in and of itself, kind of that entry level remodeling project or restoration project has really opened up a lot of doors for me as a business. Oh, you do? Oh, well, can you do the doors? Oh, can you now fabricate new storm windows for me? Oh, what about, can you remodel our master bedroom? Can you do this bathroom? So all that just opened the door to other projects that they would want to have in their house and stuff. Yeah,

Mark Lamberth
That’s awesome.

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah.

Mark Lamberth
Fantastic. Alfred, I guess last question I would have for you, man, is when I think learning about your journey and learning about it some before you talked and you’re an artist and got an amazing family, it looks like if you have a cool, well-rounded life and that you have focused on the craftsman side of things and maintain that intact without losing your soul, I mean, you’ve stayed kind of grounded and awesome in that and really been able to kind of focus on the craft. If you were talking to say a younger builder, someone who hadn’t been gotten to this point yet in their career, what advice would you have just about how to keep it real, man, how to keep it soulful, this journey and not get out of control with just chasing the money?

Alfred Lohmann
Any thoughts? I mean, for me at least, I mean, I’m a church going guy, so my identity is not in what I do. It’s in my God and everything. So that keeps me grounded, I would say too, but just as just general basic life stuff, that life is a process. There’s no arriving, you know what I mean? I just landed an incredible opportunity a few weeks back. We’re restoring the pilot house on the USS Olympia down at the Seaport Museum. Totally awesome. And if I told a younger me that, I would’ve been like, oh man, that’s awesome. That’s it. But it’s not it.

Alfred Lohmann
You have to approach what you do as an opportunity to learn, as an opportunity to grow. And you have to approach it that it is a process where if you’re focused on being a person who’s committed to a process, you are not going to be the same person today as you will be next year. And I’ll be honest with you, man, yeah, it’s important. Setting goals and stuff like that for yourself. Any goal I ever set just never happened. It’s always taken a left exit somewhere. I mean, the prime example is getting started and wanting to drive out West with my brother-in-Law and his VW of West Alia. It didn’t work. I look at it like God had totally other plans. God intervened. He just took me on this crazy journey. I’ve just tried to show up and just be as faithful as possible with what it was said before me. I’ll say this, man, I’ll see you talking to my second born recently. She just graduated college, crushed it there.

Alfred Lohmann
And she’s struggling a little bit where she is. And just, I’m not in the career. I’m not doing the thing I want to do right now. And I just saw there are years where I was grinding it out, you know what I mean? Work was a drudgery where I was working for somebody else. Maybe the pay wasn’t great or maybe the work itself was just miserable. And it was just like, I’m just got to wake up. I got to be faithful. I got to provide for my family. I mean, I ain’t going to lie. You will have seasons like that. But I think it’s just that’s what builds character of just getting through those seasons, but having a desire to grow as a human being, not just like, yeah, of course in your craft. And I mean, generally, I say to my guys, take an interest in what you do. Take an interest in what we do.

Alfred Lohmann
That’s why I give them books and send ’em videos. And you have to absolutely love doing what you do. As far as the trades, I love the smell of the wood, the tools, the dirt, whatever the noise, you have to love all that. If you don’t love it, then you need to go find something else to do. But I think it’s that persistent desire to know that there’s no arriving at anything. It’s just really a process. And how do you want to make that process beautiful? Do you want to make that process a poetic thing and leave a legacy like that? So that’s my philosophy on it.

Mark Lamberth
I love it, man. True of faith has been a huge part of your life, your family, your family’s life as well. Imagine, and just sort of, you’ve got to love what you do and learn it. And at the end of the day, work isn’t the only thing. Career is not really even what you necessarily identify with. It’s what you do for work. You identify with some other things, your faith and some other important things. And that’s beautiful, man. That’s great advice. I love it.

Alfred Lohmann
Thanks. Appreciate that. Yeah, man.

Mark Lamberth
Yeah. Perfect. Alfred, thank you so much for being here today for teaching a lot of great stuff here. I’ve got a lot of great moments here. I’m going to take some great notes here. I’ve got a few pages, great notes here that I took, and excited to go through those. And thanks for sharing all this wisdom with our listeners here, man.

Alfred Lohmann
Yeah, man. Thanks for making time for me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for reaching out.

Mark Lamberth
Okay. Have a good night, man.

Alfred Lohmann
Alright, peace. You too. Bye. Alright, bye-Bye.