Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Decision to Buy Steel Building was a Snap

Stop fidgeting. Look at the camera. Act natural. Smile. Say ‘cheese'.

For a photographer, getting a great shot involves a slew of events to happen at just the right time, the right angle, and with the right lighting. Add to that the directorial responsibilities of positioning people to make them look their best, plus being a wife and mother, and it is no wonder that Angela Owens from French Lick, IN needed help in handling the administrative side of her photography business, Rembrandt Studio (myrembrandt.info).

Her mother, Carla Shipman, offered to take over many of the responsibilities involved in running the business. More than three years ago, one of those responsibilities involved managing their rental space in a small one-room studio in downtown French Lick.

"We were in that space for about a year," remembers Carla. "About that time many casino owners started buying property and moving into the area and our rent was raised. It just wasn't worth it to rent such a small space when we figured out we could afford to purchase a much larger space from which we could run the business. That's what happened when we found SteelMaster Buildings."

The company, which is located in Virginia Beach, VA, has manufactured, designed, and supplied pre-fabricated arched steel structures for more than 30 years to 40,000 customers located in every state of the United States, in 40 countries, and on seven continents around the world.


"Every SteelMaster Building has been professionally designed and engineered to meet Building Officials and Code Administrators, Uniform Building Code, and International Building Code loads," says Michelle Wickum, the director of marketing for SteelMaster Buildings. "Also each building comes with professionally engineered plans verifying that it will meet your local building loads. In addition, customizing the interior of your SteelMaster Building is easy to do. With our clear span, truss-less design you can divide up the space in your SteelMaster Buildings however you want."

This is exactly what Shipman and her daughter chose to do with their SteelMaster. They partitioned it off into three sections: a presentation room to receive customers, a photography studio, and a tractor storage area as the building sits on four landscaped acres of property.

In addition, the family utilized the clear span, tall ceiling to build a loft that extends across the first two sections of the building. Shipman's husband anticipates using the loft as a classroom space once he retires.

The actual construction of the building was finished within one month, and Shipman learned quite a bit from the experience that she wishes to pass on to any future owners of a SteelMaster.

"When you first begin erecting the arches, the building seems flimsy," says Shipman. "But once you get each section up you realize it is incredibly strong. In fact, we live in an area where we get very strong winds, and we have never had a problem with the building in the three years we have used it. We also built the building on a high quality slab, and I strongly encourage others to do the same. We used a scissor lift to help us get the arches up, and that worked out very well. I would say the biggest issue to address is to make sure that you develop a very good drainage system for the building, and waterproof it as best you can at the bottom. Because of the shape of the building, large amounts of water flow off of it, so proper drainage is key. We also included skylights in the building which provides so much natural light that we save a great deal on our electric bill."

In addition to steel buildings like the Shipman's, SteelMaster's steel and metal pre-engineered buildings are designed for a broad range of residential and commercial applications including homes, farm buildings, garages, workshops, agricultural storage, Quonsets, airplane hangars, RV storage, roofing systems, carports, military buildings, commercial warehousing, and industrial storage as well as a wide variety of custom building applications including athletic facilities, retail stores, churches, bus stops, smoke shacks, doggie dorms, and correctional facilities.

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