Hello! We're Matt and Erin Weston of Calendar Construction. Our real story starts in 2008 when we met on the WVU PRT, but that's a story for another day. Bless Matthew's heart, but he's not much of a writer, so I, Erin, will take it from here. We started our business 5 years ago with no business plan, not knowing what we were really getting ourselves into. We weren't even married yet. Dang crazy kids!
We got into renovating when we moved into my Grandparent's slightly dilapidated home after I graduated from nursing school. I remember my sisters doubting that we could ever make it livable, let alone "cute." By this time, Matt was working travel heavy civil construction. He was only home on the weekends and every waking moment was dedicated to our project. There was a lot of late night Chinese food and beer involved.
Matt and I both grew up around construction. We realized while renovating my Grandparent's home that Matt had some crazy, awesome carpentry skills and weird, Hulk-like strength. MATT SMASH. Matt grew up helping his dad with their own home. He was helping his dad build decks when he was a toddler. If a friend or family member needed a roof, they were on it. They're ride-or-die people like that. In high school, they even built an addition on their home.
My dad has owned a local Civil Engineering Company for almost 30 years. Being the oldest of 5 children, he always wanted one of us to "take over the family business." Every year when we went to Kure Beach, NC, us kids knew he was going to come over with a solo cup of rum and give us "the talk." When I had my talk before going into college, I declined, "I'm not good at math...I don't want to work with construction workers..." Destiny is a funny thing. We make plans and God laughs. Because by God, I was meant to work with construction workers after all.
Needless to say, my family was in disbelief of what we did to my Grandparent's home. In the fall of 2015, my dad suggested that we start a construction company. At first we laughed at the idea. We didn't know ANYTHING about running a business. Matt is one of those people that can take a leap of faith. He immediately said yes, while I was hesitant.
We started the process with a TON of help from my dad. Although he did help with a lot of start up costs, we never had any investors and essentially started at ground zero. In fact, our humble beginnings were funded by ICU travel nursing--Thanks, TruStaff!
We were trying really hard to think of a name. Was this business even going to work? How do we price things? What services do we offer? Matt came up with "Calendar Construction." We agreed that although we didn't know what we're doing (yet), we will always make our Clients #1. We will always be on their schedule. We agreed on the name and Calendar Construction was born.
It hasn't all been butterflies and rainbows. We have lived and learned, usually the hard way. Several times we thought about quitting. I even applied to jobs for Matt that he was overqualified for. The phone never rang for an interview and we couldn't understand why. It's like God was telling us this is what we're meant to do. But WHY. We persevered. All of a sudden, we started getting bigger jobs. We were finally able to show Charleston what we we're made of. We were contacted by HGTV producers in June 2020. We went through multiple interviews, but ultimately COVID halted all casting indefinitely. We'll be here waiting for you, HGTV.
5 years later, we have some of the most experienced carpenters in the area. We vowed from day 1 that we would never cut corners and have stuck to it. Our Clients are always #1 and we maintain those relationships even after construction is complete.
Matt always said that he didn't know what he was supposed to do in life, but he knew he was meant to do something amazing. Well honey, this is it. If this life ain't meant to be, then I don't know what is. And ya'll, we're just getting started.
xo
Erin
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