In this episode, we started the bricklaying process for our office walls. Check it out!
Bricks Coming
We got the bricks coming for the bricklaying. It’s got a bit of a high lab, so they’re that feature wall brick that we’re going to use, that Brendo suggested. So that’ll be good. Probably would’ve preferred them to be put over the other side there, so Brendo doesn’t have to move them, but we couldn’t get there high up off there. So anyway, we’ll just stick it in here and that’ll be fine. We’ll just have to wheel them out, a bit of a pain, but that’s fine.
Window Update
You know how we’re going to have a glass door where the window was to let the light in? So we’ve cut the bottom of the concrete out. We managed to get it out without breaking the window, which is good. So then we can just secure it for a little while. But now the window guys can measure up.
The Back Wall
We were chatting to Brendo about what we are going to do with the back wall? Because we thought we’d just leave it because it’s in pretty good nick. It’s got the support over the top of the door frame, that’s all legit. But then he just suggested, what if we just take it off from there all the way back, take this whole stud wall down, that’ll leave us with the external frame of this one, which is what the mezzanine’s going to screw into. And then he said to bring a double brickwork to make it really strong on this line that he’s put in.
That also gives us the opportunity for a cavity down the center, so there’ll be like a small cavity like that so we can put wires down for power points and stuff like that. So that’s what we’re going to do now, is just cut that there and take that whole wall down here and get it all out and then he can bind it all in together, both sides and everything. And then put a nice brick wall through there and that’s where the kitchen’s going with the window later on. So once we get that down for him and then hopefully that should be good. We just don’t want to hold him up too much.
The Door
And then also over here, down this other side here, we need to figure out how we’re going to put a door through. We’ve got new door coming here that the guys can enter the office and then go straight out to the warehouse and then around. So we’ve got to figure out what’s behind here where we can actually put a door. Because when you put a wooden door frame in, you have to know the width of the door and the width of the frame. So you need to know the width of the wall plus the brickwork. We measured it here and it was a different length to over there. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes as well.
Bricklaying Update
It’s all coming together people, good to see. Brendo, his son, and his dad have been here for two days and we haven’t been able to pop in to see them. They’ve already left for the day obviously because they started early. But these guys are absolute machines. They’ve done such a fantastic job. So we’ll show you inside. You can see it’s a lot more dusty than when we left it, but understandable. They’ve got a lot of messy things to do.
You can see they’ve set up over here, got the piles of sand and everything, cement mixes and stuff, got all set up and as you can see they’ve built on the back wall here. So nice for them to be out of the sun for change. Those brick layers, they just cop it all the time, it’s either stinking hot or really cold. Always in the rain and there’s hardly anywhere to even stop to have lunch or anything. So this is good, they’re out of the wind and out of the sun at least. It’s probably a bit warm when the sun’s on it, but yeah, it’s looking awesome and goes around nicely.
Tour
Would you like a bit of a tour? Of course you would because we’d love to show it to you too. So this window here, there’s going to be a breakfast bar on the other side so if you want have lunch there or something you can look out to the warehouse. And also just to get a bit of light into the kitchen. So that’ll be staircase to go up to the office and everything upstairs later on once we get the flooring down. So you’ll come sort of under the staircase here, we’re going to put a trough here or something and maybe washing machine in the future, maybe not.
Bathroom
Anyway, this door here will be for the disabled bathroom. Mostly the guys are going to use this. We also have a shower in there because some days you do get pretty dirty on the jetter job and stuff. That wall’s going to continue through there. We got the toilet and basin over there.
And then when they go to the kitchen and you can see this doorway here, I’ve asked Brendo just to push it off a little bit. Because when these doors open, there’s a bit of dead space on this side here, and so when the door’s open like that, you can shut it. And then behind here we’ll put a little pantry with stuff like muesli bars and little packets of popcorn cereal boxes and stuff as well. So if the guys come in super early for a job and they haven’t had breakfast or something, they can grab some milk and just top them up during the day. Maybe a few chocolate bars but they shouldn’t be on them all with time. Because when you get older you can’t lose the weight.
Kitchen
Anyway, here’s that the window I was talking about. I was probably going to put a few power points down here too, so if you are sitting at this breakfast bar here, you still can charge your phone and stuff like that. Probably put the coffee machine over here. Very important to have a coffee machine and a serious one. And then on this side over here, so next to that is where the fridge is going to go. There’ll be the dishwasher there, sink, and then it’ll have an oven over here for pies or croissants and stuff like that.
When we have the toolbox meetings and that’ll be upstairs in the room, we’ll have those early in the mornings where we talk about safety and jobs and things that we want to implement in the business. Also about jobs that go pear shaped or jobs that go really well then we share that with the group and then we try and get better all the time. So if we could stick some croissants in there for when we’re all up there having coffees and make it a bit more nicer.
Toilet
Then this little door here is the one that will go to the ambulant toilets, just have a little toilet and a basin in there. And this is the door that will go from the main office. He set that back a little bit as well so we could probably put some storage behind there too if we want, which would be great. What we’re really excited about was the feature wall with the bricks Brendo suggested. So they look like the recycled bricks and what they’ve done, they’ve put them in a tumbler so they tumble around, knock off the edges and they look quite old. But he said if you use those with really white cement and joints, they look the bomb.
Feature Wall
So this whole wall is going to be like a base brick work instead of painting it, so it’ll really set it off. So that’s why it’s great to have good tradies that give you good ideas because once the wall’s up, you hate later on saying, “Oh you could have made that a face brickwork, make it really nice or something.” But anyway, that’s why you pay good money for good tradies because they’re fantastic at what they do and they give you good ideas and you get from their wealth of experience.
So yeah, it’s cranking along nicely now, so very excited. And he said he’s got a couple jobs, he can’t come back this week, but he’s coming back next week. He said it’s another day and a half he reckons, and then we’ll be done and then that’ll give us some time to start putting all the bearings in, all the floor joists in. So hopefully that’s coming tomorrow, just got to figure out how to get it in the factory. But we got a lot of mates around here, they all got forklifts, so that’ll be good.
Stay tuned and check out our blog for more updates!
