This blog is dedicated to the first year of a small business buying and remodeling an old service station into a paintless dent repair shop. It will include the day-to-day issues AcuDENT has having a stand-alone facility dedicated to nothing but paintless dent repair.

 

A little back end of AcuDENT history, I, the owner, started paintless dent repair locally in Louisville, KY back in 2003 as Gavin Reherman dba. In 2004, AcuDENT incorporated and was a mobile company. In October of 2006, we rented a garage that we used for storage. Sometime around 2007, we decided to put a sign on the garage and work on dents out of it. Thus, our first brick and mortar location was born. In 2012, we hit the jackpot with a large hailstorm and immediately outgrew our shop, so we rented office space down the road. Then in 2013, things calmed down, we moved the office to the basement of my personal house and continued in the same garage. We finally found a building in the inner city that was suitable to what we were after in 2015.

 

We have one person in the office, three technicians and myself that helps with repairs and all facets of the operation. AcuDENT needed more space and a suitable place for customers and employees. We gutted the new place, put a new roof on it and all new mechanicals, electric and plumbing. We remodeled the building to California codes of efficiency. The building now reflects AcuDent and paintless dent repair as a whole. Since PDR is environmentally conscious, we felt the building should be too with features such as 1-inch efficiency glass. The building on Norris Place was turned into an ice cream shop in the 80’s, but AcuDENT is returning it to its former glory of a similar layout of the previous Texaco station by putting in 2 bays and a small office.

 

The restoration of the building itself was quite the feat, but I was too busy general contracting the facility to keep up. I strayed away from fixing dents because of all the time it took to renovate. We plan on opening October 1st, and we’re having an open house the 9th of October. This marks our historically slowest time of the year because of the cold temperature.

 

Our budget we had for the building was 40k and we’re well over 100k for the completion. My biggest advice for anyone starting a brick and mortar would be to plan more than expected. I was thankful for back up plans and savings. I’m sure there will be many bumps in the road as we’re pretty much maxed out in every way.

 

It’s September 14th and we’re waiting on the final inspection for our new brick and mortar retail shop, AcuDent paintless dent repair. This week, the Internet is being installed and the electrical inspection is supposed to happen. Until we get moved in I don’t believe it’ll be very exciting, and I may be able to get some rest for the first time in 6 months…

 

 

 

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