Meet Dave
Dave has been working for himself since he left school at 16. He always worked on farms, doing small jobs to earn money when he was at school. He was born in Ross-on-Wye and moved around the country with his parents to various farms, spending a lot of his childhood in Newton Ferrers, Devon, where he still loves to spend time.
He started a fencing company at 17 and worked hard with various companies to learn a trade, progressing to industrial and farm buildings. He started his company, Phillips Steel Construction, and built up a good reputation over the 30 years, surviving the two recessions. The company is still doing well and Dave still has to divide his time between the two companies. There is still a high demand with orders from existing customers and new.
He loves nothing better than messing around with machinery, tractors and Land Rovers. We often say he should be on a new series of 'Scrapheap Challenge' as he loves to discover new ways of making something. Often, the best ideas coming from a soak in the bath! Sit him down for a day in front of the TV, or just relaxing doing nothing, and he tends to go a bit stir crazy!
Meet Jeannie
Jeannie left school at 16 and went straight into a full time job in retail and progressed during the years to various office jobs in sales and accounts.
Jeannie loves her holidays, cooking for friends and family, baking and gardening; she even had a dream job experience of working with Chris Beardshaw at Chelsea Flower Show building a show garden, taking two weeks off her full time job to do so.
The hut interiors are the most enjoyable part for Jeannie, with the show huts really showing how she enjoys working with colour schemes and themes for the rooms. She also likes working with the customer and helping them with their colour schemes and ideas for their very personal huts.
Meet Kate
Another family member, she was keen to get involved from the start and always enjoyed helping at the shows while still at school. It was a natural thing for her to come and join the ever-growing team once she left college. Kate is happy to throw herself into every aspect of the company and is learning new skills from our collections to deliveries, accounts and also showing the customers around.
Meet Andrew
After joining us in early 2016, Andrew was quick to pick up the pace of construction of the huts, and show his skills that he has picked up over his years of experience, which even included boat building.
We were delighted to welcome him on board!
Meet Laurence
As a family run business we were over the moon to welcome Andrew's brother into the firm. As a previous carpenter for a company who make oak framed buildings, he also has the advanced carpentry dexterity to transform a piece of plain wood into a display of art.
Both Laurence and Andrew's attention to detail ensures that every single hut is finished to the high standard that we strive towards every time.
Meet Matt
The chief window maker! Matt is a dab hand with woodwork. His precise competence as a joiner enables the windows and other items made by him to be long lasting and robust, as well as looking the part. He is always keen to add ideas for changing or improving the huts (just has very bad choice in his favourite music...!)