Tuesday 31 January 2012

Our Miraculous Pew Story

About a year ago, we had great fun going around the wood reclamation yard (The Bristol Wood Recycling Project) and collected a number of amazing pieces of wood and some complete furniture including the tops for our counter and folding table. I would thoroughly recommend this as a day out, especially, but not exclusively, if you're looking for wood.

Anyway, during this one trip we found the back of an old church pew, and bought it to become the back of a bench for cafe seating. It remained untouched for nearly a year until...

About three weeks ago a friend of @thewell, Barry Lewis (type in Barry Lewis sculpture into google, to check out some amazing up-cycling!) said he was interesting in building our bench for us, he didn't know that the piece of wood we had already found was a pew back.

When he had seen it he told us how randomly that week he had collected bits of old pew from a church being dismantled nearby. This is unusual because Barry usually deals in scrap metal, not wood. So the bench Barry has made for us is entirely pew, and looks amazing.

Within two days Barry had completed it for us, including a seat with hinges for storage beneath, thank you Barry. Miracle part two: it fits exactly in the space provided. The "wings" of the bench slot either side  of the wall that juts out, with just enough room for the necessary pipe to fit.


It comfortably seats 7, and with the scatter cushions we have made will even more comfortably seat 7!

Sudden Progress

All the best work happens when I'm not there. It was always going to be the case that as lots of the work was on hold because of the ceiling, that there would be slow moments and moments of sudden progress.

Yesterday we got a massive delivery of stuff to make a concrete plinth for our large washing machine to be lashed down to.


Here's a video which may explain this need... (not that we plan to put any bricks in ours) very sad.

Having found all this beautiful stonework behind the plaster when we took the walls down, we were determined to keep as much as we could, but without loosing too much precious wall space.



looking absolutely beautiful, I'm sure you'll agree. The rest of the walls are getting plastered (apart from a couple of really beautiful features) and this has begun too, the room has been pretty much transformed in the last 48 hours.



Thursday 26 January 2012

Tips

Don't get dust in your eyes while your little sister is filming you, you will end up pulling a silly face!


Mean of me, perhaps to post it here...

ceiling part 2

After putting up one layer of this acoustic board before the electrician's fit, then came, steel reinforcement bars (with which cassie this week manage to give James a nasty looking bump on the head), then insulation wadding, then a further 2 layers of the board, quite a job, even for this many people. Here's the process...

1. Steel: QUOTE OF THE DAY: cassie: "I didn't hit James over the head with a steel bar today...he just walked into it while I was waving it about."


2. Insulation  wadding:



3. Tea break: much deserved after stages of hard graft.

4. Another layer of board: heavy stuff. 

5. playtime!: a chance for everyone to let their hair down a bit, some a little too much. 


6. yet another layer of board: a test of everyones flexibility. 


7. The final push: it's all about the team work. 

8: pose: on a ladder in celebration


Saturday 7 January 2012

it's not all hard work

Cassie and I had fun yesterday, well she did, somewhat at my expense, talking photos at this sculpture we found. While KFC eaters watched on, I pretended to load a washing machine made of bricks.



Thursday 5 January 2012

The cogs turn

This is very much a new situation for us all, not ever thinking of ourselves as entrepreneurs. Though we consider ourselves to be generally capable, our minds have had to be stretched a little.
Our ability, or inability to do basic maths, was what kept us somewhat entertained over christmas. The frantic scribblings on our dining room table, all part of our attempts to get a firm grasp on the business side, as you can see, had Ellen and Cassie (and me, I'm not gonna lie) pretty (and in my case, totally) perplexed.



It has also tested out physical strength, this photo just preceded cassie's successful attempt at kicking down and unwanted wall, with ease.

 There isn't a great degree of stopping and thinking time, when on site it is all systems go, but plans are being written and rewritten all the time, and cassie has to head them up.
A good time to discuss and change plans, the girls have decided, is five minutes before the people come to execute them. Last minute lighting changes happened this morning, while the electricians parked.



How is it looking?

This is where we are at:

 @thewell at night, new partition build to give those doing their laundry a little bit of privacy.

 Proximity to Tesco, the boycotted one, which caused all the riots last year.

 Wire situation pre-electricians, a little dodgy...

 post-electricians, much neater!


The laundrette window, and the potential for a little stage to the right of the photo, for small scale gigs etc.

Danger, Men at work!

Work continues at the shop, today we had the electricians in to remove and then replace the great jungle of wires hanging from the ceiling. 


 James with sealant gun, doing a marvellous job, which I could not have done, I would have been able to hold that weight above my head for all of 30 seconds, he was at it for hours, thanks James.

James at work while the rest of us watch.

 Derren and Joe measuring, cutting and putting up the acoustic sound-proofing board.

Derren getting at some pretty stubbier nails with aggressive determination and a grinder! Who needs fireworks?

Monday 2 January 2012

Staff aprons


As you may have already picked up, we're going for a pretty homemade approach to this business, partly out of financial necessity, but mostly out of preference. over christmas we began making some male and female aprons for our staff.




First male apron completed, hooray.


 Beautifully modelled here by good friend, plasterer and general go-to guy, Derren, thank you sir.


First female apron completed, hooray. Beautifully modelled here by good friend Fran! Was made by chopping one of my old skirts in half, simple but effective. More to follow. 

We have a website

For all those who are interested in finding out more about our up and coming venture, we now have a website. We three sisters worked on this with no experience, on a software program which was difficult, yet have somehow managed to produce a site that we are unashamedly pretty please with. We have had a little problem with the hyperlinks since publishing the site, that is yet unresolved, but please don't let this put you off visiting and finding out more. Feedback, as always, is very appreciated.

Go to www.at-the-well.co.uk