ADRIAN — David Newland first learned the building trades as a young man by working with different contractors over time and becoming a journeyman ironworker. Out of that experience plus a couple of years of owning rental properties came The House Fixers, the family’s building and remodeling business marking its 35th year in business this year.

Founded in 1989, The House Fixers handles a complete range of commercial and residential projects, providing any interior or exterior renovation a business or homeowner would need. The business does jobs throughout Lenawee County.

While kitchen and bath remodeling makes up a lot of the company’s work, “we’re good at so many different things,” Newland said. “We’re a full-service remodeling company.”

Most of the work is done directly by Newland, the company’s owner, and his four employees, although a few things like roofing are subcontracted. Newland’s wife, Theresa, handles office duties, and his parents are also part of the company.

The remodeling business, especially when it comes to homes, has changed a lot over The House Fixers’ 35 years in business, as designs and materials go in and out of fashion. Newland reads up on new trends in order to stay current, but “I don’t watch HGTV,” he said, laughing.

With all the jobs the company has done over the years, there have definitely been some challenging projects, often caused by a home or business’s previous owners attempting to do something themselves. And that creates unforeseen complexities, like the time that taking down a ceiling revealed the building’s former owner’s subpar framing work and added three weeks to the project in order to fix the problem. Even something seemingly simple like installing tile flooring might require leveling the floor first.

“You run into stuff all the time,” Newland said.

Occasionally, too, what they run into is a surprise of a different sort. For example, they once found a crawl space full of very old beer cans because whoever was building the house way back when used the space to stash his beverage of choice.

And then there was the dead lizard in a wall.

The home’s previous owners, when they sold the house, told the buyers that they’d had a pet lizard that had disappeared one day. “Well, we found it,” Newland said.

As any business owner would agree, building a successful company takes a lot of hard work. “At the beginning, it was seven-day weeks, lots of hours, no sleep. I missed a lot of family stuff,” Newland said.

And while getting a business off the ground is difficult enough, it takes much more hard work for that business to stay strong for 35 years. Newland said that the secret to The House Fixers’ success is the relationships they’ve built with their customers. 

“We’ll return your phone call,” Newland said. “We’ll service what we do. We’ll do everything we can to make our customers happy.”

The result of that focus? “Our list of referrals is a mile long,” and many of their customers are more than simply clients. 

“We’ve made a lot of friends over the years,” Newland said, “and that’s the way it works. It’s more than just a job to us.”

The House Fixers’ business hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays. The office number is 517-263-5580. More information is available at www.TheHouseFixers.com.