Minding The Storage Cabinet Systems Helps Homeowners Keep Their Belongings Neat And Tidy

Rex Watson thrives on garage sales.

His business, Cabinet Systems, specializes in storage where appearance matters less than volume.

Installations end up next to the family sedan, the basement hot water heater or the washroom Maytag. No showrooms for these boxes.

Watson and assistant Chris Mayer, a Ferris High School senior, build the units out of particle board covered with faux wood grain vinyl. Every exposed edge is T-molded and, where they might come into contact with a wet floor, caulked.

He can add locks to shield garden toxins from curious children, cedar to discourage bugs, or drawers.

Everything but the drawer boxes is created in his garage-bay shop off of Montgomery Road in the Spokane Valley.

His basic unit is 8 feet high by 4 feet wide by 2 feet deep. The shelves are reinforced for extra strength, which eliminates the need for a center brace.

“You can get quite a bit in there,” he says.

Watson says his units are slightly more expensive than similar systems sold in the big-box hardware stores, but they are also more durable.

“I replace them quite a bit and haul them away,” he says of the store-bought, adding “If they’d anchor them to the wall it probably wouldn’t be so bad.”

A typical garage installation costs around $1,000, depending on the modules the customer orders.

Watson admits he’s no master carpenter. Though handy, when he started Cabinet Systems he had no experience with cabinetry, he says.

But after 21 years in corporate sales, he says he was ready to try something less stressful and more immediately gratifying.

“The jury’s still out on whether I make what I did with the corporation,” Watson allows.

He says associates told him it would take three years to establish the name and reputation of Cabinet Systems securely enough to generate steady referrals.

Now, if he’s not out showing the product and bidding on jobs, Watson says, his cash flow dries up in a hurry.

He says he started Cabinet Systems two years ago after a monthlong apprenticeship helping a friend who has been successful with a similar operation in Phoenix, where the absence of basements puts above-ground storage at a premium.

When he returned to Spokane, he more or less duplicated the shop in Arizona and opened for business.

“I started at ground zero,” Watson said. “I’m in a real small niche. There’s not a lot of people marketing garage cabinets.”

Watson says he finds many of his customers at area home shows and through contractors.

Although he expected young homeowners to be his primary market, he says it is the elderly moving into smaller homes with a lifetime of possessions who have sought him out for storage solutions.

They have also been good customers for another product he distributes and installs, but does not build - Murphy beds.

Watson says he saw the beds at shows in Seattle and Portland and thought that line would dovetail with the cabinetry business.

He has been selling about one bed a week, he says.

Watson says he’s also developing leads with a newly launched Web site, www.cabinetsys.com.

Cabinet Systems guarantees its units for as long as the customer owns the home. Watson says he has never had to replace a defective piece.

“We build them level, square and true,” he says.

Once he has Cabinet Systems established in Spokane, Watson says, he would like to open a twin plant in Portland.

A dedicated sailor with a 22-foot Catalina on Lake Coeur d’Alene, he says he wants the chance to cruise on bigger water.

Portland would be a more dynamic market, he says, adding that the trick will be finding someone trustworthy to manage the plant.