What a challenging year. There is nothing about the last 12+ months that has been easy. Material shortages, people problems mostly in the form of quarantines, material price increases, customers are more volatile than normal. On top of that sales are off the charts. We are selling more than we can possibly build and remain within our lead time. I have never had as much sales and profit success as this and had it be no fun at all. We are burnt out. I think inflation will cause this to slow down.

What are the rest of you seeing?

Commercial side here has gone very quiet past couple months. Most of the large contractors we deal with regularly are not bidding much or the ones they are bidding dont move forward when architects/clients are hit with todays numbers. Many are expressing a good bit of frustration about bidding projects that will likely go nowhere from the onset. On top of that, while we all think prices "should" go nowhere but down from this point, bidding work that may be a multi-phase project out 6-8-10 months, or a year or more, when there is no idea what material prices will be then seems to be making it tough and they are being very selective and cautious about what, and how, they bid.

We've been doing some odd work feeding large bridge contractors and between the material costs, and now fuel (gas and diesel), its really starting to hit hard.

The last two large-ish jobs for me that encompassed about 350 sheets of material both saw over a 33% jump in the sheets alone from the start of the job til' they shipped.

The vibe Ive been hearing and reading is the brakes may be starting to go on as people are tired of getting molested at every turn. Food, chicken, now beef, fuel, materials, and Bezos is getting a 10 billion dollar bailout from the feds because he lost the contract to SpaceX while he's building the worlds biggest mega yacht.

I have no idea where the residential sector is getting the cash to keep paying what they are paying but I guess maybe it speaks to how much money was being spent on dinning out and travel pre-pandemic. I'd have thought the brakes would've been clamped when 2x4's hit $8 and OSB at $50. Its odd. There is no way $1400 and $600 checks are funding it all but everyone in this state with kids has been getting welfare cards to feed their kids so there's more cash in the pool.

we're in a niche market, serving personal residences (no commercial work).

business is stupid busy right now and was very good last year. we have a long way to go but we're trending 20% more than last year and finished 15% up from 2019 (and moved in 2020, resulting in being closed for four weeks). we're in year 13 as a business.

i'm also not having any fun. deadlines are hard to keep up with, my guys are burnt out, and hardwood lumber prices and availability are starting to get scary. i'm with mark in that i'm not sure how much longer the customer will stomach all of this. plus, i'm thinking our light switch might get turned off with travel opening back up. pandemics are a first for all of us so we'll get it while we can and rest during the downturn.

good luck, everybody.

Same story as The Google for us.

Make it while we can!! this won't go on forever!

We are over- committed until Sept or October. Complicating things are two open-ended projects where the clients keep coming up with stuff to keep us on the job. One client just writes 12K to 24K checks to keep our interest.

Fun? Hell yes! Getting ready to raise the panels for two radius-plan pocket doors. Compound curves since the panel elevation has curved rails. This comes after a failure with veneering the panels in a vacuum bag.

I thought I would use paper-back veneer for expediency, but it did not press right. It does not allow air/glue/juju thru the paper, so it can resist the vacuum. Sanded off a lot of veneer and glue, and laid it up with plain veneer, and it all came out fine.

I am trying to retire, and publish my book, and everything is conspiring against this. I have two upcoming projects that are nice, uber-expensive furniture pieces that people feel they can't have anyone else build. This will be a nice ease into retirement. Playing with exotic woods, joinery, and secret drawers and such.

Stupid buddy is accurate.

Busier than I want, but it'smiddle stupid projects. I don't think I've ever been busier, but I've moved more dollars in less time.

It'll be a record year, for number of jobs competed....

Busy. 12 hours a day plus weekend busy. I tried to drop down to 10 hours and only one weekend but I can't keep up.

Single guy makes it a lot easier to stay busy.

Whoa. I'm impressed with typo abilities there.... Wade through the nonsense until you get something literate out of it. LOL

Crazy busy here, 7 guys on the floor running 9 different jobs, booked till September and just like David said, when we are half way thru the job, we get a phone call from the same client begging to add more Cabinets. Me having fun or happy? absolutely not, I'm burnt out and stress out with deadlines and clients that way for the last minute to hire the cabinet maker!! Again 9 jobs on the floor, 4,5 just about done (waiting on counter top or hardware), and designing, drawing and dealing with new clients on another 4.

Also very busy 5 of us in the shop and no cabinets, all hardwood furniture and home decor. Have not had a break in 1.5 years since covid hit. We use more walnut than any shop in central canada. And not live edge crap, lift after lift of 4/4.
Our govt keeps telling us the pandemic as ruined canada and the govt lies and says they have to stimulate the economy. The only ones out of work are entertainment, Restaurants, airlines. The rest of the economy including construction and manufacturing is flat out and now energy catching up.

It's a good time to retire debt. It's hard not to make large shop improvements right now. I just have to put on my June of 1991 Virtual Reality Goggles to keep being frugal.

This market has given me a chance to be better about sticking to what I do best, making windows. The overhead is the same or less, I have subbed more stuff out, and still no employees. The Covid economy worked well for my business, even though about 600,000 people died in the US. I would rather have had a bad year and no Covid deaths.

Looking ahead, now is the time to get ready for the next major problem, before it hits. The most likely change will be a propane generator and other self reliance tools.