Dan & Peter Sawatzky’s Fantastical Hazelnut Inn Signs

Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board HDU, is proud to announce a series of guest blogs written by Dan Sawatzky of Imagination Corporation, which will be posted on the Precision Board Blog at the end of each month.  In this month’s entry, Dan tells us how they created the signs to go with the three suites in the Hazelnut Inn, a fantastical property with themed rooms catering to the anniversary and honeymoon crowd.  The Sawatzkys used plasma cut steel and Precision Board HDU PBLT-30 to fabricate the signs.sawatzky

Every sign maker has a dream project where the sky is truly the limit. A project where signs aren’t the last thing to be done, a project where the signs inform the design of everything that follows. We have just such a project in the works.

sawatzkyWhen Peter and Hailey were married a few years ago they stayed in a castle on their honeymoon. They had to travel all the way to Europe to do it. That stay sparked an idea. They would build a castle in the little town of Yarrow for the same purpose. A second trip, a year later, to the Hobbit set in New Zealand added the idea of an underground suite to the mix. And a third idea of an ‘explorer’s suite’ was added for good measure. They purchased some land next door to the shop that was big enough for the three suites and a new house for their growing family and the planning was begun in earnest.

The inn will cater to a honeymoon and anniversary demographic. The suites will be luxurious and create an experience guests can get nowhere else. Each suite will be about 600 square feet with a like sized private garden. We will lavish exquisite detail throughout.

The project was named Hazelnut Inn, honouring the former use of the property. Over the last year they have been working on the final plans and done the extensive engineering such an imaginative and unusual project requires. Proper zoning is now in hand with final permissions and permitting underway. While we were waiting for those things we began work on the signs.

The dimensional signs reflect the character of each suite. They are constructed using plasma cut steel and 30 lb Precision Board. About half of the work was done using our CNC machines with the rest of the labour provided by our skilled team.

This project will unfold over the next year and a half. In that time there will be a whole lot of construction and detailed fabrication. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and posting updates from time to time. Stay tuned…

Sawatzky’s Imagination Corporation is a small family company that specializes in the design and creation of dimensional signs and environments. They tackle projects of any size from small signs to entire theme parks. Their work has garnered numerous national and international awards.

Dan Sawatzky is best described as a creative force and visual storyteller extraordinaire. His art career spans almost fifty years of magic. Dan’s passion is to design and create imaginative places that take people from the normal world to a setting of delight and wonder.

You can get free samples of Precision Board HDU, request a quote, and sign up for the monthly Blog Roundup from Coastal Enterprises.

Read January’s guest blog here.

RELATED:

Signing Off (Dan Sawatzky’s Blog)

Why Dan Sawatzky Exclusively Uses PBLT-30 Precision Board HDU

Imagination Takes Flight: Our Interview With Dan Sawatzky