The miniature trains posted earlier are great. Reminds me of the big steam and diesel trains where I grew up.

A mate is a bronze sculptor, amongst other things. He built most of his equipment, too. I’d love to get something from him, although it’s well out of my price range! http://www.alex-kirkpatrick.com/

I run Od Designs from my garage (plus a container) and my biggest successes to date have been supplying all the bike racking for UK Cycling Events who run the Wiggle Sportives and all the bike racking for the demo bikes at this year’s Cycle Show. My latest product is currently travelling the world at bike events and will be used at Rio for the Ireland and Canada Track Teams.

I had a derelict basement/lower-ground-floor in my business premises that needed renovating, but with no real use for the space, I kept putting it off. So, a couple of years ago I started thinking about what sort of business I could set up that tied in with my day job (graphic design) and didn’t cost the earth in machinery etc.

I decided to set up a picture framing business – having used picture framers in the past (and my arty background), I thought it was something I could blag my way through and be far more helpful than the other businesses I’d used.

So, I did loads of research, read everything I could, watched every video on Youtube, bought a load of equipment and set about learning to use it.

12 months ago, I converted part of my office premises into a showroom/gallery, and the till hasn’t stopped ringing since! What I originally planned as a little supplementary income side project has proved to be a thriving little business.

I meet a completely different type of client, get loads of satisfaction from creating something from a load of raw materials, and have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of learning new skills and setting up a business from scratch.
(The workshop looks nothing like as tidy as this now!!)

My Dad did picture framing from home for 25+ years until he retired last year.
It never made him a fortune but paid the bills.

One of my mates quit his well paid job in IT sales a couple of years back to turn his Landrover hobby into a business.
It has outgrown his driveway so he now rents a small lock-up/yard.
He is very focussed on Tdi era Discoverys/Defenders/110s/90s…
He buys MOT failures, ex-army and part finished projects – he breaks up the real no-hopers, and does basic (but really good) renovations on the others.
I think it is paying him pretty well at the moment.

A friend who I rode with a few times now has his own workshop making handmade wooden skis in a lovely part or rural Scotland. Got some kind of help from the Scottish government for start-ups after finishing a product design degree with a great product. Manages to straddle the line of being a small scale premium producer without all the hipster artisinal, turbo-social media bullpap. Definitely helps if you can attract investment and win prizes for your ideas though.
page here

Would love to do something similar but my practical skills and attention to detail mean it’s unlikely.

My Dad did picture framing from home for 25+ years until he retired last year.

One of the reasons I chose framing is the type of competition. It’s either someone working from home (they’re hampered by lack of a retail/high street presence); older people looking for a nice, sedate retirement/hobby business; or your typical high street shop that spends the first 3 weeks of every month earning money to pay the landlord, rates, bank etc.

I already had the high street premises so it was just a matter of tailoring the space. Almost all my work is passing trade, although as time wears on, I’m getting much more recommendations and repeat customers.

From my own experience, I’ve always found it to be a very stuffy, conservative trade, so I’m trying to inject a bit more ‘modern thinking’ into it, with an emphasis on contemporary products and image.

Seems to be working, and it’s one of those businesses that doesn’t transfer well to web/mail order, so hopefully it’s a fairly safe sector to be in.

I popped in to see a bloke runninf a cycle retail and hire business out of what appears to be a shed last weekend. Its crazy in there, although I assumne there’s some order in the chaos, and certainly an interesting and eclectic collection of cycles. Good coffee too 😀

http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/

Quite amazed at the one man taking injectors out of sprinters. What a niche.

There’s another dude who does it for Vivaros & Trafics, I believe.

I think my loudspeaker business would work pretty well downscaled to just me in a sufficiently large shed, if I wanted to do the hands-on stuff all the time – that’s certainly how it started out.

But I prefer the design/engineering/marketing side of things so the business has grown to employ more staff, rent larger premises and gained the added stresses of a larger (but still small) business – but being that bit bigger has really opened up what we can do with the products! We might be diversifying from loudspeakers quite soon – watch this space… 😉

Some of the workshops on this thread are amazing!

Just remembered a client that builds and repairs globes. Far more complicated than I thought, various methods of making spheres and applying a map. Fixing dents, weighting them to spin freely and to settle in specific locations. Mix of insurance work, prep. for big auction houses and new builds.