Stone People: Blume’s Solid Surface Products

One area where Blume’s isn’t strictly automated is with its templating. The company uses a mix of stick templates and PhotoTop®, with the stick template serving as a backup.

“The nice thing with PhotoTop is it brings back pictures of the kitchen or the bath,” says Blume. “We know what the appliances look like, we know how much is done in the room, and what the floors and cabinets look like.”

Click photo for galleryAdditionally, the person doing the template can also take photos in case there are potential access problems. And, in one case, she says it saved the company having to pay for damage it was accused of causing to a refrigerator.

“We do both morning and afternoon installations, and we call in-route an hour before we arrive so we’re not wasting any of the client’s time,” Blume says. “If it’s not a large job, they’ll go on to another job. If it is large, they’ll only have one job that day.”

Generally, she adds, the company works within about an 80-mile radius of Freeport, although that extends its service area into Ohio and West Virginia, as well as western Pennsylvania.

Being wholesale, there are also jobs that Blume’s only fabricates.

“We take on just about anything,” Dottie Blume says. “We fabricate and sometimes deliver it, but most of the time those jobs are picked up. Of course, we install our work in downtown Pittsburgh, where we produce vanity tops and conference tables for executives. And, we’ve done a good number of hospitals.”

Commercial projects have led the company into offering some green products, such as PaperStone® and slabs that incorporate recycled glass. However, Blume’s also prides itself on the many steps it takes to be environmentally green, from its water recycling system to the shop scrap, which is ground up for gravel and fill, to the many office components – phones, computers and magazines – that are sent on to other uses.

Next up for Blume’s Solid Surface Products: the purchase of another CNC before the end of 2014. And, longer term, Dottie Blume says the goal is to have another three or four CNC machines back in the shop.

Ultimately, of course, the Blumes are hoping to pass the business on to their children.

However, Dottie Blume says owning the business has – for them – really been what it’s all about.

“It isn’t all about profit-and-loss,” she concludes. “It’s what the business can do for you and the lifestyle you can get from it. There are a lot of perks to owning your own business, and a lot of responsibilities. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we’d worked for somebody else.”

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