“I’m hoping that this summer at the Friday Market, we’ll at least be able to have a prototype on a trailer. We’ll be able to pull an A-frame into the parking lot at Mansons, and people will be able to walk inside, sit in it and check it out. In terms of the refined prototype, that concept will be September.” 

“We’re working a little bit with Jason Andrews, who is so gracious with his time and expertise. He has really talked at length with us about the difference between really working on the prototyping versus jumping into trying to sell your product. There’s such a high demand for an extra bedroom around.”  

“I think we could be popping these out by June, but they would be rudimentary and so the goal at this point would be to have them for next summer (2024). So this is something that next spring, hopefully we will be able to be in a position where we have something that’s been really tested,  refined and repeatable.”

That was Jeramie Ellingsen talking about the next phase of Ellingsen Woods development. 

Up until now, they have primarily been a manufacturer of boards. Her husband, Aaron Ellingsen, has ventured into kiln dried lumber, flooring and wood panels, but it has not yet provided him with the hoped for expansion into the value added market.

AE: “Jeramie has been really involved in developing the plan. We’ve worked on it together, but she has done a lot of the entering numbers into software and crunching things and then reaching out to talk to various people about whether it seems feasible and she doesn’t technically work for the company at all. She’s not compensated directly for any of the work that she does. Hopefully that will change.” 

“When I think about creating or about moving my business in a direction  that will be selling things off island, I  am thinking very regionally.  If I start here on Cortes and I could sell a few of these things on Cortes, then I’d very much like to be able to sell some things on Quadra Island. I would like to be able to sell some things to Campbell River and really, I don’t think that in the next few years, trying to get any further than potentially maybe a little better reach into the Lower Mainland.”

“There are only 800 people on Cortes but if you can get onto Vancouver Island, then you’re looking at a much, much larger market in a lot of communities. Many of them are places where tourism is a big deal.” 

 “We were looking around at options for things to do given the equipment  that I have. Jeramie came upon this guy in California who’s basically started designing structures and creating plans for structures and selling those packages online. He’s done things from a small woodshed to an outhouse. His business is selling the plans for these and then creating step by step instructions on how to build the products.”

“We talked with him about using his designs and he said that he was more than happy. He’s been selling lots of designs and has a suspicion that many people buy his designs and then don’t have time to build the projects. We could just pay him on a time by time basis for a kit of materials that we can put together. We’d include his blueprints or his designs. He did put together a 50 page instruction booklet that tells you step by step, almost like IKEA or something.” 

“There’s an industry that could use a structure like this. I see people using fancy tents and I think that tents are fabulous, light and easy to put up and easy to take down. They also have some drawbacks, if you’re in either cold weather or extremely hot weather and direct sunlight, or hard rain.  There are advantages to having a hard structure with a hard roof and a hard floor and walls. There are probably also disadvantages,  but I think that this could probably compete with some of the tents that people are using for  these kind of setups. It’s not very complicated to set up, but in terms of longevity, durability, the ease of keeping it clean and the shape will allow for it to seem like a nice thing. For several years I’ve heard of people with tent sites, replacing their tents even every year. A structure like the one that we’re prototyping now would  allow for people to not have to replace their structures very often. It should last as long as a small cabin.”

“This cabin that we’re looking at is a little A-frame, which has basically enough space for a bed, a bedside table and maybe a desk. It’s  potentially useful for people on Cortes, also useful for people in other places and practical for us to move to other places for them to buy and build.”

“The kit would consist of the plans and all the framing material. The framing material would be produced by me with local wood and hopefully most of the wood will be hemlock. There will be plywood involved and the plywood will be purchased. We’re looking at working with a German fastener company, which would just provide for more precise fasteners.

Instead of just putting a screw through wood and hoping you get it in the right place, we would have an anchor already set in the right place.  You would basically put the board in position and then put the fastener into the anchor.  The angles would be cut correctly, and everything will fit together the way it’s supposed to.”

JE: “To make a business out of this requires being able to have a scalable product where we can actually make 50 of something. And making 50 of the same thing, we’re going to get better at it with each iteration. Basically we need to refine it to a point where we actually have a scalable business. That is what takes time and is not the way  I feel like we’ve gone about things in the past, it’s been more like one off.”

The Ellingsen’s hopes are currently focused on the SHAPE Program, which is a partnership between the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing at UBC and the Wood Industry Group (TWIG). 

JE: “This is an incubator program. I think there’s five sessions between February and September. They have  a wide range of people that are acting as mentors, and there’s different stages. The initial one is concept and design.  Then they go into prototyping.  There’s some  pieces that have to do with the marketing, then manufacturing and then presenting at IDS West in Vancouver in September.”

AE: “There will be an advanced prototype of our cabin at IDS West, which is  a pretty big design show and should offer us some good exposure off Cortes Island, because most of the programming is based out of the Lower Mainland.”

“I think it’s the biggest exhibition in Vancouver. The motivation for the program that we’re enrolled in is creating value added products in BC.  I think that we are the only people that are going from logs to a finished product. Most people will be buying boards and then working with that or buying all the materials  and then adding the value from there. I’ve managed to find a completely simple business model, yet it’s still a little bit complicated because I really do want to work with logs from here. It’s very important to my vision for the community forest and my vision for my business.” 

JE: “All the other participants in the Shape program are making objects and furniture. We’re planning to have  the A-frame include the material to have a bed. So it might be that at IDs West, it’s our bed  plus a concept model, or a one-third section, or a one half section of the structure rather than the full structure because the exhibition space is exceptionally costly.”

AE: “I’m having a little bit of a challenge because I’m still doing other work and  right now I have  an order for a whole bunch of flooring  that’s going down island.  This is a load of hemlock that’s going to a company called Canadian Bavarian, which is in Duncan.  They’re actually going to be doing the kiln drying, and they’re going to be doing the millwork for the flooring.”

Top image credit: Inside the A Frame – Photo by Jeff Waldman

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