EXPOSURE, in more ways than one

This month we discovered the beautiful stone underneath the rotting plaster as was, so we took all the plaster off and found some pretty nice feature. Some of which will stay we hope like these arches, but most of it, though beautiful, will have to be re-plastered, due to sound levels and warmth.

On the second note, we are beginning to give our whole business some exposure. This week we sent off thousands of "opening soon" leaflets to the printers, and when I went in yesterday I discovered that Cassie had adorned the shop windows too. Now people (bad people, non community people who don't boycott big business) shopping in the Tesco express will know what the shop will become.

the ceiling came down, the ceiling goes back up.

Today will be the third, and hopefully final day of the first part of the ceiling replacement. This layer has been added for sound proofing to stop noise traveling both up to and down from the flats above. The space between each beam is different and different at both ends, so each one has to be individually measured, cut to fit and screwed in place, this is partly why it takes such a considerable time, not to mention the ducking and diving under pipes and wires that has to be done!

Note, the little holes in the beams are not woodworm, no fear, they used to house thousands upon thousand of nails, that held the last ceiling up I guess, and all had to be painstakingly removed.

Cassie and I joined the men yesterday, and cassie is also there now, finishing the job.

Fascia signs again

Well we're back to our frantic designing stage again folks. Yesterday Cassie and I worked together trying to finalise the Website design so we can get that up and running, mostly we just wanted to kick the scanner, but we made a good start and will get back to it today in the hope that soon you'll be able to look us up properly! As to out fascia, we're doing well, a lot of cutting and sticking, scanning and reshaping, tracing and color adjusting, but we're nearly there.

Stock take

This was a couple of months ago now, but I have only just retrieved the photos, but this was a fun day in the autumn when we decided to unpack the "@theWell cupboard" and discover some of the treasures we have been stockpiling for the last 3 years.

luckily the girls live in a house with a big front room!

Then we had some fun sorting and categorising!

 We definitely have some vintage...

but we've got some retro too, we will some how merge the two styles, eclectic but cool!

sortin'

I caught ellen the other day doing some sorting, 3 years worth of sketches, phone numbers, forms, all sorts in many many folders, and this was the first time we had tackled it I think.

Do us a favour, fill out this survey!

Guys, all you followers and viewers out there, before we enact this grand plan of ours, it would be really helpful if as many of you as possible could fill out the survey we created, found (i hope) via the link below. This is totally confidential, we don't need any personal details from you, just some general questions about your feelings on launderettes etc. So please, take 3 minutes to answer these 10 questions, and then send the link to friends/ family/ enemies, we don't really mind. Thanks as always, The @TheWell team! x

<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WBFRL2L">Click here to take survey</a>

Hands on

Cassie and Ellen are taking a very hands on approach to @TheWell, while we do have professional electricians, builders, plumbers and plasterers (mostly at mates rates, thank you all) we need to save all the pennies we can, and that may mean getting stuck in. Cassie the other day assisted our plumber in pulling all the old plaster off one wall, back to the bare stone wall (which might or might not be kept), and here's Ellen measuring up for some structural change (She maybe a structural engineer folks, but recheck the measurements!)

One day I shall provide you a photo of the pair of them at work in their customised women's working hats!
This is the very dodgy ceiling being held up with some...well essentially chopsticks. This is what Ellen is standing beneath in the previous photo. Scary stuff.

What is in the name? Well....

A number of you may be wondering what the name "@TheWell" is all about. Well the @, is all about the fact that we will provide internet services (and computers). "The Well" we hope brings up connotations of many things, look it up in the dictionary it is pretty extensive. Notably it is one of the few places where it is traditional to get a drink

 and do your laundry

in the same spot.

As well as this you might also get the ideas of achievement (doing well), well being, a proper job (clothes well clean), a sense of friendship (knowing someone well) and well...thats all I can think of really....anyway we thought it was well worth doing, coming up with a name that we felt well suited our concept and style. Well that is all I have on Well, let hope all's well that ends well.

Directors overload

We went to our accountant on Friday, and went through how we would divide up the portions of the business between us, we left it with him to sort out, and we have just received an email that says, all four of us, Mum, Ellen, Cassie and I (Lily) have been made company directors in error. So, even though it may be very short term, from today I can say that I'm a director of the company: At The Well (the @ sign was not permitted for our official name, though can be used on our sign etc).

Tweet!

Guys I know I said you could follow us on twitter on my last post, but we've done a little rearranging. you can now find us, I hope, at _AtTheWell, so follow us and tweet us your responses. Ellen met with 3 guys down at 145 yesterday, discussing some beam or other that has to go in, seems a little dull? A beam means structurally sound, means we can get electrician, means we can plaster, means we can open shop, so to use the now rather cliched tagline of a shop I'm boycotting: every little helps.

More and more each day

We now have a business email, if you want to contact us, feel free, at info@at-the-well.co.uk, also you can now follow us on twitter! search for latherandfroth, this was Ellen and Cassie's handiwork on monday.  Yesterday (Tuesday) Cassie and I went to talk business banking with many banks, and went to PC word to consider what hardware we want for the internet side of our cafe, all is fun a productive.

Celebration Indeed

Today we got our planning permission for change of use (from a launderette to a launderette cafe) GRANTED!!! Much celebration all round, we can now storm ahead with our plan in order, we hope, to be open in the new year. We now have the task of officially registering as a business, sorting our finances, finishing our building, and inviting people in...

Plans

Planning permission was essential for our building apparently, as launderette to launderette/cafe counts as change of use. As slow and irritating as this process is (we won't know until November) it has forced us to get on with some of the decision making, what kind of outside lighting do we want etc.

Excuse the rather primitive drawing, but this shows some of the ideas we're hoping to implement, for example using large spools as outside seating (2x £15 from a reclamation yard) and graffiti up the wall to the left. Were hoping one or more really talent street or graffiti artist will come and provide this, we want to ingratiate ourselves into the stokes croft community and it has some exceptional graffiti talents.

We also created a very basic 3D image, on google sketch up, (note not to scale) as a representation of our building, we don't have access to the flats above. 

Take note that we have a bus stop right in front of our window, we have not yet figured out whether this feature's advantages out weigh its disadvantages.  

145

Our discovery of 145 is a pretty amazing story, Cassie and Ellen, found the building and worked hard to find out who it belonged to, it had just been sold at auction, and so proved difficult, meanwhile Cassie was volunteering with Unseen UK, a charity to prevent human trafficking. She discussed her business plan with one of the other volunteer, who mentioned that his dad had just bought an old launderette, and the three flats above it. Quite amazingly it was the same business, and Cassie's colleague was able to put in touch with his father, Malcolm, who agreed to rent the shop to us. He is now employing builders to return the shop from it's desolate state, making it structurally sound and watertight. The building itself was a launderette, but has been out of use for 10 years, and is in a pretty dilapidated state.

The front of @TheWell with space for outside seating, and bikes, all these spaces need a little TLC.

Some sort of Cupboard

Our long Hallway, to onside of the space, will encompass, storage and a kitchenette.

The space itself, it is bigger than it looks.

This space behind the 'shop' will become the folding room, with the two large machines and driers, will also have toilets.

The toilet as was, this will remain, after some serious work

This was the entrance to the back of the space, it has now been opened up considerably, and when the shop is secure will become mostly unused as the front of the shop can be opened up to both staff and customers.

Our building is 145 Gloucester road (right opposite where the riots in Stokes Croft were against Tesco). stokes croft is a great up and coming alternative area of bristol, with a great sense of community, something we are definitely promoting ourselves.

Logo designs

We have come up with many designs for our logo, each time trying to capture something of our prospective business, but we are not quite there yet, but boy have we looked at a number of options. 

We wrote and wrote and wrote, but came to no satisfactory conclusion, until ellen took the problem to one of her workmates, and he designed us this lovely shop front. 

It's not perfect, Ellen felt the font itself was a little "witchy" so that problem remains somewhat unsolved, but there's a man on the case, and we're defiantly getting there. The background colour with be painted a very bright greeny yellow, and the font colour will be a dark grey, that much is decided, but comments are always appreciated, we can afford to change it now, will will not be able to when it is up. 

We are then planning to laser cut this design, or at least one similar, onto some pegs and distribute them, along with a discount around the local stokes croft area, and beyond. 

Being thrifty

As just a family of four, with none of us earning astronomical amounts of money, we knew that we were going to have to cut corners on the spending costs, without cutting any of the corners on quality. So over the last two years, we have been slowly compiling furniture, lighting, crockery, decorations and much more. Wherever possible we have got things for free, from freecycle etc, and then work hard to "do up" the furniture, so that it either looks new, or deliberately old. We have learnt a number of new skills, painting, distressing, upholstering, bartering, wombling, cushion making, and all in the name of serving a community one cup and wash at a time!

A few months ago, we laid out all these things we had bought, in order to take stock of what we had. Luckily Ellen and Cassie, have a big living room. Chaos ensued...

Because of our collections from many different sources, jumble sale, charity shops, car boot sales, skips, the street, wood reclamation yards and as gifts, we have a pretty jumbled collection, but we are working hard to adapt what we find to give it a uniform style, even if an eclectic one. 

Copenhagen came calling

When the idea became more concrete, we began our research in earnest, trying to discovered where else in the country and the world this combination was being used. They were few and far between,  one up an running with 2 branches in Copenhagen caught our eye, aptly named The Laundromat Cafe. So last year, we set off of a fact finding mission, to discover whether it was a concept that was a viable business, and frankly we took it as a great excuse to go on our first proper family holiday. 

We traveled round multiple launderettes, taking snaps and picking up ideas as to what works. The trip by no means put us off, which was encouraging, and even helped to persuade our mum Jane, that we weren't going to make a huge mistake. Since then, she has become hugely enthusiastic, and the other day bought us a cash register for £35, which will mean a set up an happen all the more quickly and cheaply. 

In The beginning

Hello, We're 3 sisters, Ellen, Cassie and Lily, and about 3 years ago, with no experience or qualification, we began our journey to create a Cafe/ Launderette in Stokes Croft, Bristol. It has been a challenge, and we're not there yet, but with a building under construction (well reconstruction) and a whole host of things bought to fill it, we thought we would share our story thus far with you. 

Well, first Ellen had this bright idea, that we all loved. Why not have a launderette with a cafe, where you could wait for you washing while have a cup of tea? I cannot tell when the hatched idea grew quite so quickly, it almost seamlessly went from a cool plan in the pipeline, to us forking out £500 for planning permission for our building. But however it happened, @thewell has been such a huge and exciting part of our lives, and we're so grateful to the help and support of friends and family, as well as our great team of handymen and workers, who are making this random wacky idea, a random wacky reality.