Hi, I'm Ben Kelly.
I run Strait Shine out of River Bourgeois. Owner-operated, fully insured, ground-based window cleaning across Richmond County and the strait. Port Hawkesbury, Arichat, St. Peter's, Louisdale, and everywhere in between. When you call, you get me. When I show up, you get clean glass. That's the whole company.
Before this I spent nine years as a personal chef.
Private dinners, family events, corporate gigs, holiday meals, the kind of work that takes you all over Nova Scotia at all hours. I built that business from nothing and ran it for nearly a decade. It taught me what running a service trade actually requires.
Show up. Communicate. Confirm details before the day. Write the invoice on the spot, not three weeks after the fact. Notice the smudge in the corner. A clean window is the same kind of work as a properly-finished plate. Either it's right or it's not. There's no middle.
The tools are different now. Squeegees instead of saucepans. The work itself is window cleaning, not cooking. But the bar I hold myself to is the same one I held for the dinner work, and that bar didn't move when the trade changed.
Strait Shine is the same standards in different clothes.
Two reasons.
The first one is simple. People around here are bringing window washers in from the city and paying the extra travel charges to get them here. No reason somebody right on the strait shouldn't be doing the work.
The second one matters more.
Cooking takes you everywhere except your own kitchen at suppertime. The personal chef business is great work, but it's late nights, weekends, holidays, and long drives across the province. I have a young family. I'm tired of missing dinner.
Window washing is a clean local trade that keeps me on the strait and home for the people who matter. So I built Strait Shine the same way I built the chef business. Plain pricing so nobody gets surprised. Honest answers to honest questions. A guarantee I'll actually honour. Showing up when I said I would, not when I get around to it.
The short version.
Based in River Bourgeois with my wife and our two little boys. Drink coffee, not tea. Drive a small operation by design, not by accident. Small means I can answer the phone myself, show up myself, and stand behind the work myself.
That's the whole company.
Want a quote?
Tell me about your windows. I'll have a price back within 24 hours. Or call 902·401·2141 and we can talk it through.
Get a free quoteThanks for stopping by. If you've got a question I haven't answered, just give me a shout. Cheers, Ben.