Revy - Home Improvements On A Big Scale

FTLComm - Winnipeg
July 10, 1999

Last week we commented on the scope and size of Chapters the book chain giant and its immense stores. It appears the same concept has been applied to building materials. Both Home Depot and Revy (Revelstoke) have built chains of really big warehouse like outlets to sell their products on a grant scale.

Revy includes a "Tim Hortons" donut shop within the same outlet.

With the size of this kind of store many complete kitchens, bathrooms and housing parts can be assembled for viewing and you can see the direction of the retail business to

be attractive to the "impulse buyer" who thinks with a few tools and some slick materials he or she can work wonders. As I looked around the place and the value of those parts that would go into various projects I realised how valuable a tradesman might be. Every aisle I went down showed "how to" steps to install this or that fabulous component and at times it seemed plausible but age and experience have taught me to know that though I can learn to do a lot of things I will not achieve the level of simple competence to measure and cut with any certainty.
The light display was a wonder to me as ones eyes can see at a glance so many different ways of illuminating an area, in or outside.

For me the highlight of the visit was this machine. A sort of fork lift that has the operator on the fork with his controls and he can drive around the facility rising up and down as the occasion requires. I thought this was a neat thing and because of the story's design and lay out it is necessary to have a tool like this to pick up the products that are stored in the upper elevations of the canyons of "fix-it" items.

I found a good stool sat down and checked out the place. From my perch I took a picture looking left then right of the huge store and the mixture of customers. I saw one obvious tradesman and the rest of the people were like me, "looking" and a few wannabe "Tim Allens" like the man with his copper tubing in the picture on the right.

I saw few bargains.