Jim has it nailed after £150k investment in Jedburgh

Borders Fixings at the Riverside Works in Edinburgh Road is the brainchild of Jim Brand, 56.

The joiners merchant/trade counter is still a work in progress with Jim currently operating it with support from wife Lynn and stepson Adam.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing – on the first day of trading in June last year the business took just £13.

But trade has picked up and Jim is confident the business will soon be firing on all cylinders with the aim of employing eight staff come August and of pushing ahead with an expansion as a timber merchant.

Jim said: “We launched in June and we are slowly doing it up as we trade out of 65 square metres and we are in the process of upgrading that to 250 square metres over the next few weeks.

"I’ve been a joiner for 38 years for trade and and decided to open a joiners merchant-trade counter.

"Before that I had my own business, which was Borders Joinery Conservation, specialising in restoration joinery work. The move came about because I had cancer and after the treatment I was physically not up to the joinery side of things anymore. I have a permanent broken jaw due to my cancer treatment.

"We had the workshop in Jedburgh and people kept coming in and asking for screws and nails and things like that so we decided, ‘you know what, we’re giving away a lot of stuff here, why don’t we open a trade counter’, so we did and it’s gone from strength to strength.

"We got delivered nearly £20,000 worth of stock on the same day the country went into lockdown the first time, back in March, so we sat on it for ages, not doing anything, and when they said we could open that’s what we did on the first of June.

“Customers come to the door and ring the bell and we go and let one in at a time and they buy what they want. We’re still trading at a loss, to be honest, given the amount of money we have put into the place, but it’s turning the corner.

"Because of this pandemic we have nothing to compare it against but we have trade contracts with some leading building companies in the Borders. I’m confident for the future.”