Why I Started Second Coat Web Design in Port Dover

Second Coat Web Design opened in Port Dover, Ontario, on August 6, 2026. I want to tell you exactly who you'd be hiring, why I started it and how I intend to do the work.

The Furniture Refinishing Thing

I strip and refinish furniture in my garage. Old dressers, chairs and tables. Some of them look rough when they come in, but underneath the old finish there's solid wood worth keeping.

Most of the work is patient, unglamorous stuff. I remove the old finish, repair what's actually damaged, sand carefully and build the finish back up. If the piece is good, I don't want to turn it into something else. I want people to be able to see why it was worth saving.

That thinking followed me into web design. A lot of small businesses are better than the websites representing them. The business may have years of trust behind it while the site is dated, awkward on a phone, slow to load or hard to update. I like fixing that mismatch.

No website yet? I build those from scratch too.

Who I Am (The Part That Usually Surprises People)

I'm a Grade 2 teacher in Ontario, and I've been in the classroom for nearly twenty years. Before teaching, I was a competitive pairs figure skater and competed at five Canadian National Championships. I also toured arenas around the world performing as Hades in Disney On Ice: Hercules.

I've written children's books and completed a memoir called What Ledger Couldn't Count. I built my own personal site, mrcornfoot.com, as a working portfolio example, so you can see a real site I built before you hire me.

It's an odd resume, I know. The useful part for a web client is pretty straightforward. I'm used to explaining things clearly, doing detailed work over and over until it's right, and writing for an actual reader.

Why I Started This

I started paying closer attention to local business websites and kept noticing basic problems. A site would be difficult to use on a phone. Contact information would be buried. Pages would load slowly. Sometimes it was hard to tell, within a few seconds, what the business actually did.

The ownership problem bothered me too. A business owner might not know how to change something, who was hosting the site, or who to call when it broke. I wanted to build websites people could understand and give them one person they could actually reach when something needed attention.

That's why I started Second Coat Web Design.

The Local Angle

Port Dover is home base. I live here, shop here and know the difference between Port Dover in February and Port Dover on a summer weekend. I know the surrounding towns because they're places I actually drive through, visit and spend time in.

Some clients will want to sit down together. Others will be happier handling everything by phone and email. I can do either. If something goes wrong, you contact me directly.

I work with businesses in Port Dover, Simcoe, Delhi, Waterford, across Norfolk and Haldimand counties, and farther out in Hamilton, Brantford, London and Southern Ontario.

The Honest New-Business Part

Second Coat is in its founding window. The portfolio currently shows work built for the business and independent projects; client work will be added only when it's complete and approved for publication. The opening prices reflect that early stage.

Through January 31, 2027, my founding-client pricing is published on the main site for one-page websites, website rebuilds, new sites, ecommerce and rescue work. I keep the live numbers there so an older article never becomes a second, conflicting price list.

The founding rates are a deliberate way to put the first projects on the books. The scope is defined before work begins so both of us know exactly what's included. I also take a small number of projects at a time and finish them. You won't be project 14 in my queue.

See the current published prices and full scope.

The Engineering Side

A website is only one layer of a business. Aaryn is Second Coat's Principal Engineer. He is based in central London and holds a BESc in Software Engineering from Western University. His professional work spans full-stack development, backend architecture, cloud infrastructure, APIs, payments, AI systems and distributed computing.

That means the work doesn't have to stop when the problem goes beyond a website. Aaryn can take technical ownership of workflow automation, system integrations, internal business tools, custom software and backend systems. He can also meet London clients in person and act as their local technical point of contact.

The Website Second Look: Free, No Strings

If you're not sure whether you need a new website, I offer a free Website Second Look. I review your homepage and the main route a customer takes from arriving on your site to contacting you or buying something. Then I email you five specific observations and the one thing I'd fix first.

There's no charge, and I won't turn it into a sales call unless you ask for one. The dedicated Second Look page asks only for your name, email, public website address and anything useful I should know before I look.

Let's Talk

If you run a small business in Port Dover, Norfolk County or anywhere nearby and you've been thinking about a new website or fixing the one you have, I'd love to hear from you. If you're not sure what you need yet, that's completely fine. We can start with a conversation.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad to be here.