Meet Blair R. Toland of Tall Guy Woodworking

Today we’d like to introduce you to Blair R. Toland.

Blair, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Born in South Boston, I belong to a large Irish-Italian family, with three sisters and more cousins than I can count. My father was an engineer who enjoyed doing handy work around the home on weekends. I suppose my building career really started back as his apprentice, with my mini toolbox in hand.

I’ve been in the construction business for over a decade, but I didn’t start out here. Right after high school, I started working in restaurants and quickly fell in love with the work and the excitement of the kitchen. I dove headfirst into culinary school, working in kitchens at nights and during weekends. During this time, I learned an appreciation for craftsmanship, precision and hard work from my chef-instructors and bosses.

The years that I spent working as a cook, then a sous-chef and eventually as a head chef for some of the top, award-winning chefs in Boston were formative. It showed me how a good team, hustling side-by-side, with a common goal, can be a formidable thing. With good leadership and a solid plan, so much can be accomplished.

After over a decade behind the stove, I decided to look for a new challenge and decided to dip my toe in the renovation business. After years of apprenticeships, courses, books, and hard work, all building upon the skills I first developed in the kitchen, Tall Guy Woodworking emerged.

People often ask about the name of the company, and the story goes like this: When I first started out, I would often bid on projects, and then call to follow up with the proposal. Clients would often ask “Which one were you again?” and I’d describe myself and then customers would reply, “Oh, you were that tall guy!” and the name stuck.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of the hardest parts of building and growing this business was figuring out how to translate my customer service expertise into the contracting business. In restaurants, I knew how to provide customers an experience they would value and remember. When starting Tall Guy Woodworking, it took a while to figure out what parts of the contractor-customer relationship were most important to the customer, and then figure out how to excel in those aspects.

Over the years I’ve learned that customers value detailed and transparent estimates, realistic expectations regarding timing, keeping their homes clean and safe during the renovation process, and delivering work that will last for generations.

Tall Guy Woodworking – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Tall Guy Woodworking is a team of Boston area carpenters, remodelers, craftsmen and renovators who take pride in top quality work and customer service. We use our 30+ combined years of trade experience to deliver a high level of service to all of our clients. Tall Guy Woodworking’s specialty is working with clients who want to invest in ‘doing it right;’ we bring the skill, knowledge, sourcing, and connections to help clients create projects that move beyond run-of-the mill renovations.

Our team prides itself on working with leading local designers, subcontractors, architects and decorators to bring our clients’ visions to life. We strive to make the renovation process as low impact and seamless as possible, using pre-planning and heavy-duty site protection to keep sites clean and organized and our clients happy throughout the process.

Much of our time is spent building relationships as well as renovating physical spaces. We understand the leap of faith customers must take to trust us with their homes, so we seek to earn that trust with transparency, dependability, and respect. This approach has been the key to our success- word of mouth referrals have kept us going for over a decade. Many clients have worked with us on multiple jobs through the years, knowing that they can trust us with their most valuable possession- their home.

We work with our clients to improve the quality of their homes and commercial spaces, incorporating old world style craftsmanship with new world technology and green building knowledge. By using the latest, up-to-date building techniques and materials, we build and renovate for the long term, using construction methods that ensure the clients space will look amazing and live well for years to come.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
One of our proudest moments was a Back Bay project in 2014. We were hired to renovate one condo in a 13 unit building that had suffered extensive fire and water damage. While we were working on the first unit, other condo owners saw the quality of the work we were producing. Word spread and eventually one contract turned into eight. A furnace explosion made the projects even more challenging, but the team worked through the bitter cold to deliver beautifully renovated condos and happy customers.

We are most proud when our customers are so pleased with their renovations that they recommend us to their family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. That sort of belief in the quality of our work is what makes us proud.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tallguywoodworking.com
• Email: tallguywoodworking@gmail.com
• Instagram: tallguywoodworking

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