New Hebridean Soap Company Building - Progress
Wednesday 14th November 2007
Compliments of the season to all ...!
I am working on getting the Christmas products onto the website - they consist of pretty Frankincense squares, Frankincense Liquid soap, and bars of your choice in attractive Kraft Boxes with matching lids nestling inside a terry facecloth: Here's a Frankincense square in one of the boxes - they're £5.50, or £3.10 on their own.
and here's an ordinary bar in its own box with a toning facecloth: £5.50 .
The Frankincense liquid soap is absolutely *scrummy*, and may become a regular item, if you like it too:
Here the weather is crisp and cold, with drizzle, but we don't mind because we're just pleased to see the end (hopefully) of the recent gales ...
My shop is gearing up for Christmas at the moment: here's a picture of the shop itself:
and feast your eyes on my new wood-burning stove:
Anyway, my very best wishes to Customers, old and new, and don't forget your Last Posting Dates for Gifts ...!
The Website will be processing orders up to 21st December *only*, because after that, Linda will be travelling home to her parents, in the Midlands, for a Christmas break until early January.
Linda Sutherland.
Saturday 26th August 2007
Hello to everybody who is still reading this Blog ...!
Due to a number of problems with BT, Broadband, PC's and the internet in general, combined with the seasonal workload, this is the first time I have been confidently able to update the web-site - sorry about that ...!
We have had a *very* successful season, my workforce Anne and myself have been hard at work in our new shop all summer, and have had the pleasure of meeting many wonderful customers from all over the world, during the course of the last few months. Our Visitor Book makes very interesting reading ...!
The Project Manager of the building project took the decision not to return and complete the project he had undertaken, so remedial work is taking place, at additional expense, to correct and modify parts of the building which were unfinished, and I'm pleased to announce that we are now 'watertight' for the winter months.
We are now working towards christmas ... We plan to make Frankincense celtic squares with an abundance of gold ribbon, and I have today been experimenting with a new goatsmilk soap, which uses goatsmilk given by our very own goats in Callanish - a fine bunch of goats they are too ... There may be pictures later ...
This season has been taken up with getting used to our new premises, making things work, and learning from the new environment, as well as supplying all of our usual retail outlets, and responding to the increased web-site ordering system traffic.
Next season hopefully we may have the resources to 'branch out' a little bit, and increase our range of products.
Once again, a big thankyou to all of our customers, in person, and through the ether, and a promise to blog a little more frequently now ...!
Linda Sutherland.
Thursday 29th March 2007
Hello again, after a very long wait ...!
A little progress ... The Car Park is done, Yay ...!!
Building 'snag-list' not yet completed. Waiting for return of team ...
However, Snag-list is (in Proprietors personal opinion) only superficial, and more importantly, all of the basic necessary things are now in place for opening to proceed at Proprietors convenience, rather than Project Managers convenience ... There is a long-awaited freedom in that ... So we are going to go for it ...!!
Tuesday 1st May 2007
is the date chosen for the Grand Opening Day - please put it in your Diaries - some will get invitations, but *all* are welcome ...
Neo-Pagans amongst you will recognise this as the Festival of Beltane, about which my Celtic Rituals book says the following:
"out of the darkness of the winter, we welcome the summer ... With Beltane, actions that have been in gestation, contemplated in imagination only, can now be expressed in the world of form... We have entered the season of action and energy - an ever-greater outward-moving affirmation of light"
That about says it all for me ...
Our Grand Opening will be a 'drop-in' event - just come and join us whenever you wish between 10am and 6pm ...
The Storyboards may not yet have arrived, but the kettle will be on and the company will be vibrant ...!
Tuesday 19th December 2006
A Very merry Christmas, and a Peaceful New Year to one and all ... !
Not much progress up to now ... And we are unable to open until all work is completed.
Hopefully the Car Park tarmaccing will be done soon ...
And realistically, work will now conclude next year, hopefully being well-finished by the Spring.
Here is how the shop looks ... No soap in there, and a feeling of somehow ... waiting ...
The soapkitchen now contains all of its furniture, and is simply waiting for some soap to be made and set to cure there ...
More in the New Year ...!
Sunday 15th October 2006
Hello again!
Wednesday 6th September 2006
The new shop is beginning to look more 'finished' from the outside now ...
The roof is completed ...! At this traditional landmark, a bottle of cold Bollinger was popped and enjoyed by architect, building team, and myself, under the new roof ...
Special weatherproof tongued-and-grooved Cedarwood Cladding has been applied to the shop extension. This wood needs nothing else doing to it, and will only just take on a more silver sheen over time.
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The cladding was also tailored to fit over the external pine 'A' beam:
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Painstaking wood-screeding has been hand-cut (by builders) to give an exact fit around the inside and outside of windows within the stone frame:
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And solid bespoke Douglas Fir furniture, designed by Dominic Marshall, the architect, and built by Henry Cutts, the Chief Builder, is now in place, and the first coat of floor paint has been applied to the cement.
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This piece of furniture is actually a soap Curing Rack - each of the seven pull-out shelves will take 200 bars of soap, standing on their ends. The shelf-ends protect the curing bars from dust and debris.
Unfortunately, our electrician burst a head gasket at Carlisle and lost his window of opportunity, which has delayed the project a little while longer (all should've been finished by now), however, more work will be done this month, which should (fingers crossed/touch wood) see all work written off and signed off.
Friday 21st July 2006
Phew ... Pressure of work ...
Building is in dormant stage for a couple of weeks, while head builder gets married ... !
Most of the Tiles are now on roof, using modern clip-grid system, and heavy slate tiles.
Glass is now in doors and windows.
Window-frames for stone part of building are roughly insitu:
It is difficult to fit modern window-frames into thick stone apertures - they must first be fitted roughly, and insulated around the edges. Then the stonework will be replaced around the borders of the frame, using traditional stonework skills.
The final work will commence in first week of August.
At this time, roof tiles will be completed, skilled building-works finished off, and shop-fitting will commence.
Tuesday 25th April 2006
The heavy, insulated roof layer has now been fitted, and waits to take ceramic tiling on its surface.
No more work will happen now until mid-June 2006.
Starting then, three weeks work should take us up to completion.
Now the basic roof structure is in place, a hint of what the finished interior will look like emerges:
Tuesday 18th April 2006
The Cranes came to lift 'A' shaped joists up to the roof - these will form the framework of beams which will be visible upward from inside.
Shop window-frames have also now been put into place:
Roof framework now just has to be built up with supporting joists, this will form the basis for the beam structure which will be open and visible from the inside of the buildings.
Tuesday 4th April 2006
Walls for extension are now built, and old roof has been taken off ready for the new one ...!
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View from back of barn
View from side of barn
Friday 24th February 2006
Pointing of inner and outer surfaces of stone is now completed, and the stone floor should be going down inside soon ...
Continuing groundworks means that the site is full of deep chasms and exposed pipework interspersed with huge mountains of peat topsoil, a portion of which is being spirited away by green-fingered neighbours for their vegetable gardens (with my consent, of course) ...
All excavated rocks are being kept aside to go towards constructing my organic Herb Rockery, around the edge of the site ...
Work scheduled to commence with new roof around middle of May ... After then, things should go really quickly ...
Tuesday 27th December 2005
Building work has now stopped for the festive season, but the timber skeleton which will be the new Retail area is now in place...
The pre-assembled one-piece roof will be delivered in January...
Levelling of groundworks is on-going.
Monday 7th November 2005
Andy and Neil, my builders, have gutted the inside of the barn and laid a new floor ...
Currently, MacLennan Contractors are digging out the Groundworks for Utilities and Car-park. As you can see, they are having to remove very large rocks!
Unfortunately, the new roof for the building cannot be supplied until January 2006, so now the development definitely won't be finished until early Spring 2006.
Friday 9th September 2005
All Grants are in place - just waiting for groundwork to be started. Builders arrive on the island next week.
Plans!
The Hebridean Soap Company ‘Warehouse’
This building project will transform the current stone-built barn into a working soap-kitchen and Retail shop, where people can come, learn a little about the history of soap, browse through our products, watch our soap being made, and relax at decked areas outside, overlooking Loch Roag and the Hills of Harris.
The project is due to begin in September 2005, and is to be partially funded and facilitated by the Western Isles Enterprise, the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar Business Advantage Scheme, and The Royal Bank of Scotland.
Before being used as my 'warehouse', the building was most recently used as a sheep-byre. 50 years before that however, it was a dwelling-house, as can be seen by the fireplaces halfway up the walls inside.
Linda Sutherland.
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