Custom Crating founder, the energetic Alki resident Steve Walum smiles when he works. This may be due to his business doing well, his ability to take his golden retriever pup, Blanch, to the office, the pride he derives working with his son, Erik, and the challenges he likes to confront when crating unwieldy items for the mail like a 24-foot, five-ton GE water vessel system, three antique toy cars, or the recently-shipped wrap-around 6-inch thick windshield for Paul Allen's new submarine.

Hard to believe Walum is 70 when you see him sawing, hammering, and running around the 7,000 square foot warehouse clutching lumber with a phone pressed to his ear.

"Some day Erik is going to take over the business," he said of his son, 36. Many in West Seattle know Erik's wife, Katy Walum, Admiral Neighborhood Association president.

"Yes, a lot of people know me as 'Katy's husband,'" smiled Erik, who originally was in the tech business until the bubble popped. He agreed Custom Crating is doing well and said this could be a barometer that business is improving in general. He observed, "When industry starts ordering things, and manufacturers start to buy things, they need to crate and ship them. When we get busy that means things are getting ordered above us down the chain."

Erik and Katy's house is also well-known, "Totem Place" in North Admiral built by celebrated Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe founder, J. E. "Daddy" Standley. Erik said some might think it haunted as the radio turns on and starts blasting by itself in an upstairs bathroom during dinner, and the scent of cigarette smoke is sensed at times. The former owner was a heavy smoker and died within a month after she sold them the house.

"My mother's mother, Ann Barnes, was the longest standing employee of the curiosity shop," said Erik. "There is a plaque there with a picture I took of her behind her counter." She now lives in retirement home in the city.

Steve also played a role in West Seattle history. He attended Highline High School, became a builder working with his dad, a contractor who worked with plaster and stucco, then started his own company in his Burien backyard. Then, about 25 years ago, he bought a warehouse and property from Blackstock Lumber right near the Chelan Cafe. They still have a yard on Elliott Ave. West.

"I ran my business there for seven or eight years," he said. "Then we got a permit to make artist studio lofts out of this building. Just after that, the Port of Seattle came along and condemned it, and took it for that container place. They didn't want to give us what we thought it was worth. We had renovated the property."

A tough negotiator, Steve said he was satisfied with the final offer, and added that the Port was very cooperative in helping him get into his South Park spot, where he has been for 17 years. He said his business took off when a friend asked him to crate a new kind of glass produced in a continuous sheet.

"His company, Spectrum Glass, became the biggest in the world," said Steve. "We did about a million dollars a year in boxes just for him."

The woodworking end of their business can be seen at Fresh Bistro where they built wine racks, and planter boxes in their outdoor seating.

And Paul Allen's yellow submarine?

"We crated the big front window of Paul Allen's submarine," said Erik. "It took two years to build so we had to be real careful crating that thing."