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From Barn to Shop and Visitor Centre!
August 2005 - Plans!  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. Friday 9th September 2005 All Grants are in place - just waiting for groundwork to be started. Builders arrive on the island next week.
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. 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. 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 4th April 2006 Walls for extension are now built, and old roof has been taken off ready for the new one ...!
 View from back of barn  View from side of barn 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 now also been put into place.   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.
View of barn extension and roof layer Now the basic roof structure is in place, a hint of what the finished interior will look like emerges:
View of roof rafters 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.
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. 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.
Cedarwood-clad building The cladding was also tailored to fit over the external pine 'A' beam: 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:
Wood screeding on windows 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.
Solid Douglas Fir furniture 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. Sunday 15th October 2006 The Hebridean Soap Company now has its own two-ton Standing stone outside the business premises ...!
Raised standing stone This rock was dug out of the earth under the new shop foundations, right at the beginning of the project, so it seemed fitting to stand it up outside ...! The building has five sets of electric fans fitted:
Ceiling fan These work to force warm air down, and in so doing, paradoxically heat the building to some extent, rather than cooling it ... Proper MDF walls are now up, finished and painted in the extension ... My builder has built all of these himself from scratch, and because he is a pedant like me, they all fit perfectly ...
New walls of shop
Wood edging on meeting stone And once again, wherever the new walls edge onto stone, they have been painstakingly cut to fit the contours closely. All electric work has been finished – here is the Control panel
Control panel And tube lights are in place, suspended by decorative chains from the wooden joists ...
Lighting Tuesday 19th December 2006 A Very merry Christmas, and a Peaceful New Year to one and all ... !
Shop The soapkitchen now contains all of its furniture, and is simply waiting for some soap to be made and set to cure there ...
Kitchen More in the New Year ...! Thursday 29th March 2007 Hello again, after a very long wait ...! ~ 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 ... Saturday 26th August 2007 - The end or just the beginning? Hello to everybody who is still reading this Blog ...!      
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