The custom painted floor and designer color wall scheme enhance the displays.

SpaceMan Home & Office President David Linda does not hesitate when he reveals why he located his business in Houston. He sums up his reasons in one word: Love. It was for the love of his wife, Dena that Linda relocated from the Boston area so she could be closer to her family. The decision has proved to be a prescient one, as Linda’s business has developed into one of the top custom space management companies in the United States’ fourth largest city.

Linda’s impressive background includes earning a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and an MBA from the prestigious Kellogg Graduate School of Management, along with stints as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and two years of strategic planning with CVS. When it came time to fulfill his promise to move to Houston, Linda had a quandary: he could go back to working for a big corporation or return to consulting – both of which were financially lucrative, but didn’t satisfy his drive to build his own business — or he could strike out on his own. Having always been an intensely organized individual who did his own closets, the budding entrepreneur considered using his space management skills as the basis of a business specializing primarily in custom closets.

“I did research and a business plan, and the more I found out, the better it looked,” Linda says. “I actually looked for a reason not to do it, but I couldn’t find one.”

Before committing, Linda sent letters out to friends and acquaintances, asking them for their opinions regarding his idea, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Convinced of the soundness of his path, Linda plunged ahead, and the result is that SpaceMan has been one of Houston’s fastest growing, privately held companies, with an enviable growth rate of 25 percent per year.

With Houston being home to the world-famous Johnson Space Center, the name SpaceMan seems to be a well-chosen one, but Linda didn’t find his business name with the space center in mind.

“I came up with the name in Boston and never even thought of it (the space center),” he explains. “My wife said, ‘what are you going to call this thing?’, and I said, ‘I don’t know, how about SpaceMan?’ It was just a joke, but she thought it was kind of cute.” Nor is the moniker meant to be sexist, as some have contended; rather, it is intended to be short for “space management.”

SpaceMan offers a wide array of closets in various finishes to help customers with their space management issues.

Countdown to success

Officially launched in 1998, SpaceMan is located in an industrial park northwest of downtown Houston. It has grown to a staff of 15 employees and recently expanded its space by 50% to accommodate increasing business. The most recent expansion added offices and storage areas for finished product, designed to free up more space for the manufacturing shop area. Additionally, the expansion allowed Linda to complete another one of his dreams: an attached showroom that is the centerpiece of the SpaceMan facility.

“When we built our first space, we had a showroom about the size of an oversized office, with a couple of displays in it, but my intent was always to do a concrete floor and open decking, 18-foot ceilings and drop some lights,” he explains. An overly expedient landlord installed carpet and drop ceilings before Linda could move in, and with product in the parking lot and jobs already scheduled, the young businessman was forced to tend to other, more-pressing matters, which delayed his showroom idea for nearly a decade.

“I had this vision, and it took eight years for it to actually play out,” he muses.

The final process of creating the showroom began when Linda sat down with his design staff and made a list of every single product they wanted to be able to show people, but could not. “For example,” explains Linda, “you try to describe to customers how you can put mirrored doors on top of cabinets, shoe or purse storage, and if you hinge it the right way you can create a three-way mirror. You try to explain to somebody without a visual and most people just don’t get it. So that went on the list and now we have a three-way mirror in the showroom.”

Open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, and by appointment on the weekends, the new room is not a retail showroom, but rather a place where prospective customers can get a visual and hands-on idea of what SpaceMan can do for them.

“We try to get every person who calls us for a design appointment into the showroom, usually after we visit them,” Linda says. “Other places do it differently, but we try to go over their drawings in the showroom. It’s amazing how much more effective the process is when we can make that happen.”
Some of the staff have been trained to assist the occasional walk-in traffic they receive, and there is always someone available during business hours who can take interested prospective customers through the showroom and answer questions.

This custom-built double jewelry drawer is an example of SpaceMan's attention to craftsmanship.

A showplace by design

The striking design of the showroom is thanks to the complementary color scheme developed by a local interior designer, who matched paint colors to laminate samples of the pieces Linda planned on displaying. The resulting palette has even led to unexpected requests from customers: “About once a week somebody asks us for the actual paint color that we used to paint an area of the showroom,” he says, “because they bought the closet in a certain finish and want the exact same paint color as we have in the showroom.”

Another eye-catching feature is the showroom floor. This custom floor was created by a faux-finisher, not a floor company. A finisher and her assistant were on their knees for two weeks straight spreading seven layers of pigmented concrete. A combination of greenish concrete with a couple of different shades of reddish-brown were mixed together and spread in varying thicknesses with hand trowels. No automation was used, and each layer took a couple of days to put down. After the seven layers of color were done, six or seven layers of sealer were added on top.

The brightly lit displays arranged about the showroom allow visitors to see examples of SpaceMan’s wide range of products. Besides custom bedroom closets, there are office spaces, pantries, a home office/spare bedroom featuring a sturdy wall bed, entertainment centers, dining areas and even garages.

Despite the variety, Linda professes a desire to keep things basic.

“We don’t claim to have every variation,” he says. “We’re fairly particular about bringing on new options and accessories. We’re somewhat conservative about showing people what’s out there and tend to stay away from the flavor of the day.” The showroom does give Linda and his staff the opportunity to showcase options they believe in, like the three-way mirrors, hidden ironing boards and mirrors, hand-built tie and belt racks, safes and their custom double jewelry drawer – a big hit, especially with the ladies.

A garage display is an important part of SpaceMan’s showroom.

Linda believes the showroom does more than provide a place for customers to browse options: “I also think that there is an aspect of legitimacy that the showroom lends to the business,” he explains. “When people call from out of the phonebook, they don’t know if they’re calling a guy working out of his van or if it’s a multi-million dollar company. People will ask us about our lifetime guarantee and what would happen if we went out of business. When they come in and see a showroom like this, it gives them more comfort that we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Doing things the right way

SpaceMan is active in Houston-area business associations and has achieved a stellar reputation for its charitable work. The company has assisted with Habitat for Humanity, as well as helping build a home to benefit mentally challenged adults. In addition, Linda was featured on ABC Television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, both for his work on a house for a family with two daughters suffering from leukemia and experience as a bone marrow donor himself.

Linda is a dedicated family man, and his love of life and generous nature is apparent in his attitude toward his customers as well: “This business is rewarding,” he says. “We make people happy for a living, and there aren’t many businesses around where you can say that. Seventy percent of our leads come from referrals, because we take care of our customers.”

With its record of commitment to customer satisfaction, combined with the booming petroleum-based Houston economy, the future looks bright for SpaceMan to continue its rapid ascent.