It all started with a lampshade.
When Katherine Hayes was visiting her grandparents in 2010, she noticed stains on a lampshade, and decided to spend some time with bleach and a bucket rather than making a run to the store to buy a new one.
A finance professional, she'd been contemplating a career switch, and somehow, that seemingly minor moment of home maintenance clicked for her. "I love to repair things, put them back in order," she says. "I've always been a tinkerer, and in some ways, it's a reaction against our disposable consumerism. It feels like people don't fix things anymore, they just replace them."
That line of thinking has led Hayes to start
Fixity, a service specializing in the small aspects of a home that could use adjustment. From tailoring curtains to mending jewelry to righting a wobbly chair leg, Hayes embraces the long list of to-do items that many people usually avoid. She's repaired a zipper on a travel bag, re-woven small holes in sweaters, assembled IKEA furniture (a talent in itself), and patched holes in upholstery, among numerous other tasks.
To get the business going, she's been relying on grassroots marketing efforts, which involve traditional referrals and social media. Hayes believes that her service is unique, because as a former art major, she utilizes creative solutions that some handyman-type services might skip. For example, she once sewed a round pillow to cover an oddly shaped window in a client's attic space.
"A handyman isn't going to be sewing pillows," Hayes says. "But if that's what you need, and you can't sew it yourself, now there's Fixity."
Source: Katherine Hayes, Fixity
Writer: Elizabeth Millard