As the hammers fell silent and the sawdust settled, we found ourselves amidst the transformed walls of our renovated salon, eager to peel back the curtain on our renovation escapade. Pull up a chair as we recount the mirthful mayhem that ensued while trading podcast mics for paintbrushes and power drills.
Navigating the labyrinth of a renovation project can be akin to a high-stakes treasure hunt, where X marks the spot, yet the map is a tad blurry. Pete, our project manager extraordinaire, charted our course through this tricky terrain, proving to be our unsung hero. We'll share pearls of wisdom about fostering goodwill with tradespeople (hint: never underestimate the power of a well-timed cuppa) and the robust collaboration that played a pivotal role in the salon's rebirth. From the camaraderie fostered over shared meals to last-minute adjustments that brought our vision to life, you'll get a front-row seat to the inner workings of our renovation odyssey.
Wrapping up, we'll reflect on the collective strength of our team, each member flexing their unique muscles to pull off this feat. Personal anecdotes about stepping back to let others shine and the artful dance of balancing responsibilities with the need for strategic planning pepper our conversation. With a dollop of humour and a generous sprinkle of heart, we celebrate the mindset shift and the aligned partnerships that saw us through the challenges - all solidified with the triumphant installation of those pesky mirrors. Join us on this transformative journey, where we lift the veil on how a space can be more than just a place - it can be the embodiment of a community, a culture, and a dream realised.
To follow our journey:
Instagram @aheadhair_
@the_conscious_salon
This podcast has been produced and edited by Snappystreet Creative
As the hammers fell silent and the sawdust settled, we found ourselves amidst the transformed walls of our renovated salon, eager to peel back the curtain on our renovation escapade. Pull up a chair as we recount the mirthful mayhem that ensued while trading podcast mics for paintbrushes and power drills.
Navigating the labyrinth of a renovation project can be akin to a high-stakes treasure hunt, where X marks the spot, yet the map is a tad blurry. Pete, our project manager extraordinaire, charted our course through this tricky terrain, proving to be our unsung hero. We'll share pearls of wisdom about fostering goodwill with tradespeople (hint: never underestimate the power of a well-timed cuppa) and the robust collaboration that played a pivotal role in the salon's rebirth. From the camaraderie fostered over shared meals to last-minute adjustments that brought our vision to life, you'll get a front-row seat to the inner workings of our renovation odyssey.
Wrapping up, we'll reflect on the collective strength of our team, each member flexing their unique muscles to pull off this feat. Personal anecdotes about stepping back to let others shine and the artful dance of balancing responsibilities with the need for strategic planning pepper our conversation. With a dollop of humour and a generous sprinkle of heart, we celebrate the mindset shift and the aligned partnerships that saw us through the challenges - all solidified with the triumphant installation of those pesky mirrors. Join us on this transformative journey, where we lift the veil on how a space can be more than just a place - it can be the embodiment of a community, a culture, and a dream realised.
To follow our journey:
Instagram @aheadhair_
@the_conscious_salon
This podcast has been produced and edited by Snappystreet Creative
Here at the Conscious Salon, we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which we stand today, the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to the elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Conscious Salon. Welcome back to the Cons sound podcast test. Yes, beautiful to be here. This is take 46 um.
Speaker 1:We've stopped and started we haven't done it for a couple of weeks, guys.
Speaker 2:We've been busy busy, busy, busy.
Speaker 1:Girls have been busy and, um, it's like we've forgotten how to do it. So, yeah, we've, we've had to restart a few times, and this is the one. I can feel it it's like we've forgotten how to do it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we've, we've had to restart a few times, and this is the one I can feel it, it's gonna happen we haven't podcasted in a couple of weeks because we've been um, we've been busy, we've been just a bit caught up. What have been being caught up doing my co-pilot test we have been.
Speaker 1:I'm just like effectively doing the block on our salon.
Speaker 2:We yeah, without Scotty cam.
Speaker 1:That actually people's Scotty cam oh, that's generous, I think love you people, people like yeah, yeah yeah, I don't really know, scotty cam. I don't know why I'm pretending that I know what that's good, making us nearly start 47 times, but we won't because we've got places to be and things to do that's right, all right. Well, we're just gonna get busy.
Speaker 2:Oh, we've got messy, we've rounded her up, um, but we have been, yeah, scotty camming at our salon, um, it's been absolute chaos for two and a half way actually. No, it hasn't been chaos, it's been actually quite conscious, um, but the last couple of days have been big and uh, a couple of days were definitely unconscious, living and breathing in there.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't even care anymore, just get it done oh yeah, all of our, all of our meals were coming out of brown paper bags or like plastic containers um a couple of unconscious rates.
Speaker 2:You know getting like scratch wine but we have had a big couple of weeks um doing a friend who doesn't know. We have a brick and mortar salon. It might come as a shock to some of you but we've got a brick and mortar salon and we did a renovation. This is 11 years in the making yeah, I mean well, yeah, like we haven't thought about it for like a couple of months, but it's been a long time coming, is my point yeah, I mean, it's been desperate for it for a long time.
Speaker 1:And I think, look the reality, this is nikki and I created the space 11 years ago for just nikki. And I think, look the reality, this is Nikki and I created the space 11 years ago for just Nikki.
Speaker 2:And I like, literally, we were like this will be kind of fun if we basically drew a line down the middle of the salon it was like half is mine, half is yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think with that we also were then like this will be kind of fun if we can last more than a year. Um, I don't think we ever had a and fun has been had, definitely, but I think with it we had built the salon out for us. So, for example, like the basins were built for me and, um, no one is the same height and shape as me. My three-year-old son is actually similar height, similar. Look, if you've got like a child under 10, they're probably about my height, but it's not built for. So, yeah, our crew, especially like Megan big and long, megan Big and long.
Speaker 2:Like a bean. Megan's like is she six foot? She'd be six foot, I don't know Megan's 5'9".
Speaker 1:She's like a beautiful. A beautiful like feel free to um.
Speaker 2:Message us if we're incorrect here, but megan's five nine um. And yeah, the salon just wasn't built for. It was built for, like you and I short ass.
Speaker 1:It's like me. So, especially when I've got like a semi-tall court, they're not super tall, actually I don't know why I'm acting so they're like giraffes, but they're not like. It wasn't built for them, is the point. So I was always super comfy at the basin. No one else was comfortable, no. And so now we've built it, not just the basins. We thought, well, if we can do the basins, we may as well do the whole bloody lot. So we'll probably take out the beauty room that we haven't used for three years so we had.
Speaker 2:We had, for context, we had a team room out the back and then we had an old beauty room that's been sitting there for like I don't know three years since we.
Speaker 1:Well, I just claimed it as my like office. I didn't like it was.
Speaker 2:It was just like a junk room that Tess and I also had a table in and we just had, like you know, everyone has, everyone has a junk room. It was just that room that.
Speaker 1:I was in it. We were part of the junk.
Speaker 2:But we decided to completely gut and rebuild our whole salon and it's been a really amazing process, a lot of lessons learned, but we've also done it in a really conscious way this time, as in completely differently to, however, we've done it before. So we've done many renovations, maybe like how many renos do you reckon we've done?
Speaker 1:You change it every like three months. I'm quite comfortable to just like continue on. But Nikki loves a what's it? A revamp? Yeah, I love to, actually a big value for me is change Like.
Speaker 2:What's the word Like when things are different?
Speaker 1:Chaotic.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll go with change. But um, what's the variety? Variety, oh yeah, variety is one of my spices of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, got a real variation happening constantly. I mean, we just put in the coffee bar. I honestly feel like three, not the coffee bar, the area that you made for the crew that we're gonna play on their laptops.
Speaker 2:I reckon that was there for two, three months and then and then I was like all right, we're doing it, we're cutting everything, and now I've actually put in a coffee bar like a cocktail.
Speaker 1:Look, it is immaculate like this is. This is the salon we've dreamed of and we've created it. We did it in the two weeks which, uh, the trades I did get it that was the trainee's job that they've always dreamed of as well. It's going to be hard and fast, just like everything good in life.
Speaker 1:I did kind of start cottoning on that we might be chewing off, biting off more than we can chew, when I kept saying like they were like how long have we got? And we're like two weeks, and they were like that noise, that like, oh, like I don't know about that or they'd go.
Speaker 2:It's very good when someone breathes in through their teeth and does that like head tilt, but then also, when we were saying but.
Speaker 1:I was like what, are you not up for a challenge?
Speaker 2:He's like oh, you're not good enough to do it. Because we found other builders who could do it easily. Mickey was baiting them and it worked.
Speaker 1:But I think with that as well, they also were then like if we were saying, saying, can it be done? I think there were.
Speaker 2:We never said can it be done? One no. One of the trades said I'll let you know time frames and I said oh, no, doll, it's just going to be the two weeks and he was like can't be done, and I said can be done, let's do it yeah, and then he said no, he did.
Speaker 1:I remember him saying because I said are we crazy like can we do this? And he's like yeah, you know it was like yeah, and then I said so what happens if it doesn't? He's no. His words were if no one fucks up, it will work. And then I said what?
Speaker 1:happens when it if, if something goes wrong and he said we'll work all night and I said, steve, that's the hottest thing you've ever said yeah, but to be fair, he, he was there part of the night. Yeah, he always. He was there a couple of nights until you worked until 3 am one night.
Speaker 2:So his statement was true. It just wasn't him that was working through his man pete uh, but yes, it's been an amazing experience and we want to share a little bit about it on this episode, so that we can also give salon owners and clinic owners some perspective on what to expect when you're renovating your space. We're going to do a full episode breaking down the cost of our reno as well, because I think people will be really interested to learn about that and know all the behind the scenes there.
Speaker 1:Me for one, because I'm still in the dark about the actual cost of this. Nikki did mime it behind my back the other day.
Speaker 2:Someone asked how much it cost and I mimed it behind his back and Tess was like what's that? And I was like what. But you know, as all good projects do, they blow out time-wise and often they blow out financially. But I'm really proud of what we've done in the past two and a half weeks. The space is so stunning, it's good and it's such a beautiful investment into the future of the business and into our client and our team's experience. So we're going to talk about that today. We're going to debrief. We have an episode coming where we break down the cost. We just haven't received all the invoices yet. So, tess, you'll be learning with everyone else.
Speaker 1:I think I'll be off sick that day, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But, tess, we run a little segment around here. What's she called Hot Girl?
Speaker 1:Hotline Beautiful.
Speaker 2:So for anyone new around here, we do put a questions box up on Instagram every week. We ask you for your troubles, your woes, whatever's keeping you up at night in your salon or clinic business, and then we offer some advice around that. Tess, what's our listener?
Speaker 1:question today. Listener question is what three tips do you have when renovating a space?
Speaker 2:Cool, so we asked for renovation specific questions for this episode. A space cool, so we asked for renovation specific questions for this episode. Um, but three tips for renovating a space. Very good question you go first. I knew you were gonna say that um, I just like to buy myself some time to think yeah, no, that's fair.
Speaker 1:Uh, okay, cool, I'm gonna give, I'm just gonna go from my end of it. What I found really helpful. The first one with your trades, I will say this offer teas and coffees and drinks. Maybe not lunch, you can, if you're feeling generous, but definitely teas and coffees, and constantly like checking if they want anything like that I want to actually say this we didn't so previously.
Speaker 2:In all of our builds we've always bought all the trades lunches and teas and coffees, etc. Usually they've been like mates doing us favors. So this time we hired pretty much every single trade except for painters and we did teas and coffees and things like that, um, and like sweets and cakes and things, but we didn't offer the trades lunches as we usually would have in the past. I feel, like this is the stuff that I would want to know, like behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, like what should I expect?
Speaker 1:Because it does start blowing out Like I think that's the thing If you're doing like 50 bucks here, 60 bucks there, 70 bucks, because there was like 200 of them on site every five minutes because we would be in such a time crunch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would have been a bit hectic but teas with coffees and coffees are really good. We have a coffee machine at the salon. I made sure that was not packed up because I was very conscious of the fact that I did not want to be going and spending five bucks per coffee on people I was happy to have.
Speaker 2:We still bought a lot of coffees.
Speaker 1:We did. Well, you did, I didn't, I was constantly. But yes, we still bought some, of course, but we just tried really hard to keep it that. But I my point with this is not about what you're spending or what you're doing with it, just seeing if they want nothing, people often I know that that's a real point of difference for a lot of tradies is when they're even just offered a drink like a tea or coffee or water, soft drink, whatever the hell you want to offer them beers in the fridge yeah, it just really makes the end of the job.
Speaker 2:That's what you guys are chasing exactly um.
Speaker 1:You do another tip and then I've got a final one that I'm going to finish on I think so for us, the biggest we every winner that we've ever done previously.
Speaker 2:We have and we'll talk about this um through the episode as well we have done majority of the works or we've gotten like pete to build it and then, you know, gotten like the um trades that are needing to be like certified or whatever, to do the little bits and pieces, um. But this time we hired every trade out and then we just did the painting and cleaning and stuff ourselves. So my biggest tip was to be exceptionally prepared. So we had like so much preparation that went into it and we thought of every single teeny, tiny thing that could go wrong. We basically had a contingency plan. But my biggest tip would be to have someone project manage um.
Speaker 2:Obviously I know that this can be a luxury, but we hired pete, my partner, to do that um and he was paid like every other trade, but he basically ran the whole job and he was a buffer between us and whatever issue popped up. So he was like a I guess, yeah, like a circuit breaker, so that if there was something that went wrong, he would ring and say this has gone wrong. However, we've already got a solution for it. Blah, blah blah. I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 2:So, that was incredible to have him there and I don't think I would do no matter like what financial situation we were in. I don't think I would do another reno where he wasn't or someone wasn't project managing. Love you, doll. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1:You did love you, doll. Thanks very much. You did an exceptional job so good. I think the final one that I really think made a really massive point of difference when you're starting to hit the finish line and it does get quite overwhelming and quite um. I think that's when everything you're really excited, but then you're really also worried that things aren't going to come together, that things are going to start falling apart and or you know, you're not going to be able to get everything done.
Speaker 1:And all of that when panic starts and panic will start at some point, whether it's a start, the middle of the end, I think it's really important to kind of have that awareness of yourself and really, for us, we had like a rule in there of unless it's something that's inspiring or motivating, we don't want to hear it. So it's okay if you've got concerns and things like that, but we aren't there to. It's not going to help if we just keep adding more and more panic to it. So during those moments of like crisis and like really starting to have that panic setting in, it's really important that we keep in that mindset of inspiring each other, motivating each other and supporting each other, which can be probably the hardest point to do that, when all you're feeling is stressed and pressured we're going to talk about that particular incident today aren't we so?
Speaker 1:beautiful advice um hopefully that's helpful though. So what were they? Just to recap, we've got the. What did I say?
Speaker 2:first, offer tea and coffee, get a project manager and try to stay in a positive mindset yeah, keep your mindset good yeah so I feel like a lot of people have a lot of things that they want to know about renovating a salon. Um, cost would be definitely up there. Time frames would definitely be up there. Like, how much planning, did we get a designer? We got asked that a lot if someone designed it. No, we didn't get a designer. So we went into this. We talked about this about six months ago about renovating the space and I'm just gonna be totally transparent.
Speaker 2:We were very much up in the air about staying at the current premises that we are in. So a couple years ago we wanted to buy a space and then during the pandemic, we really burnt through a lot of the money that we had saved. Can I say how much? Yep, go, great, no, um. So we had saved about two hundred thousand dollars. So for anyone who's ever bought a commercial property, it's exceptionally. You needed an exceptionally big deposit, um, to be able to do that. So we saved about two hundred thousand dollars and we burned through, I would say, 95 of that um during lockdowns and covid and like rebuilding our business and everything. So it's sort of it almost felt impossible to regain that deposit and we really sat on that. Okay, are we going to stay here? Have we outgrown it? Um, we actually have quite a big space there, but it just wasn't set out quite right and, as anyone who is leasing a premises knows, you don't want to put too much money into it if you don't own the building.
Speaker 2:We ended up pulling the trigger about six months ago. We decided, if we're going to stay here and sign another lease, we are going to deck it out and make it feel really good for us. So we started making plans, um, and the one of the first steps that we did was asking our team what was important to them in the new space and basically got all of them to write down what was really important to them and needed to be almost a non-negotiable um and things that we wanted to. They wanted us to consider for the reno um, and there was some really beautiful suggestions and ideas there, but a lot of the stuff was really practical. So it was things like obviously, the base and heights weren't quite right, a lot of things with client experience, and then we went on as well and also asked our clients for feedback. So some of the feedback that we got like, for example, because this might be useful for other salon owners who are wondering what clients looking for.
Speaker 2:Um, we have a very large clientele of corporate girlies, so a lot of women who have the flexibility to work from wherever and they like to bring their laptops into the salon.
Speaker 2:And one of the pieces of feedback that we got was that our benches are too small to have our drinks trays and the laptops, so they wanted bigger benches and a lot of people were getting very snacky at their appointments. So it's definitely something that we considered when putting in the new space. So we went to our community and asked them for their feedback, which can be a bit of a daunting thing to do, but I feel like it's very, very necessary if you want to really nail your client experience in your new space. But we then went in with planning the space and we're very fortunate that one of our team members, hannah, previously studied interior design and she just has beautiful taste. So we very much worked with her to design the new space so that it felt really good and felt really beautiful, because some of the stuff that we picked is like kind of out there there's a giant pink zebra in the middle of the room um, we have picked, like kind of, some bold things.
Speaker 2:Do you think? I don't think it's that bold. What do you think's bold? Wait till the furniture arrives, and you'll be like whoa oh, that's true actually I keep forgetting.
Speaker 1:I keep forgetting that it's not fully, fully, fully finished.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's bloody beautiful, but it's like there's some quite bold choices in there, like so sorry, nikki, to cut you off, surprising no one.
Speaker 1:I haven't been involved too much of the design part, like I was quite happy, I was like, yeah, do whatever you think, whatever you think very much my brand. I'm like, yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. But so that probably makes more sense because at the minute I'm like there's a couple, there's some green tiles which are gorgeous and some sexy mirrors there's like we've gone with like emerald green tiles to stay with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can I chose them actually.
Speaker 1:I just like to point out there's my only contribution this is one of the things.
Speaker 2:well, han selected a heap of different tiles for us to choose from, and Tess that was her contribution was choosing that Kit Kat tile, I think that's exactly what it looks like, Not yeah? Yeah, it's like a green Kit Kat. It sounds awful, but it's really beautiful. We're not doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking. When you're a kid and you make the fences with the paddle pop sticks, that's worse. I don't know why we did that, anyway.
Speaker 2:Puddle pop sticks that's worse anyway. Um, we, so we basically sat down and started planning it, and, from there, like, these are the steps that we actually took. So, from there, we then contacted all of our trades, and we looked at okay, how long is this going to take us, how much time off can we do? Where can we tack it on so that our team maximize and get the best out of this as well? Because we didn't want our team to have to use more annual leave, so we tacked it on to the easter long weekend, because they had the public holidays, so we really wanted to be beneficial for them as well. Um, and then we basically started planning it and sourcing our trades.
Speaker 2:So one other thing that I really want to highlight is you can absolutely keep the cost of things down if you source your own trades. What that means, though, is that you don't necessarily have a builder overseeing the whole project, but you can source your trades individually. Um, it just you just have to be like bloody good at coordinating them. So, from there, we started to look at design, started to get a lot of quotes, um, and started you creating a Pinterest board to have the vibe that we were going for.
Speaker 1:Tess is learning. I just want to point out I'm quiet at the minute because I wasn't involved in this process, Are we?
Speaker 2:on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are, I just had to pause the episode and say, tess, you all right, mate, I'm just enjoying listening and learning. I am actually learning. I'm like, wow, so that's what you did. Was it because the like and that that might. That will probably be like the fact that I'm hosting a conscious salon podcast and I'm like, yeah, unconsciously, I had no idea what was going on. It's not that, it's just that for, like, actually visualizing what, like, you and hannah can both visualize that and say it and you can see it and I can't see it.
Speaker 2:So we can like close our eyes and feel it.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to add to this conversation and also, too many cooks probably doesn't need it. Those two have got a solid idea and they're like aligned with what's going on. I don't need to be a part of the process. I fully and I also fully trust them because, at the end of the day, do I really know how to lay out a salon? No, no, I don't. I know what can work and what can't work, like in certain things of like. You know I'm probably not going to put the basins at the front door, but in terms of like, actually how a salon layout would best work.
Speaker 1:I knew that you two had a really good, clear idea of that and I don't need to be involved in something that I'm not going to be able to truly contribute to. And I want that to kind of hit people because if you are in a position of power or leadership or authority whatever word that you want to take from this if you're in a position of being a leader in your business or you're a CEO of your business, that doesn't mean that you need to do everything, contribute in every single way. I was not going to add to that mix. So even now when I'm listening, I'm truly listening, because I'm hearing how this process worked, because that's how removed I was. I wasn't. I saw them having a lot of me nutting things out, showing me what they had created, and I was like, yep, love it, perfect. I don't think there was anything that I said no to no.
Speaker 1:I actually don't think there was anything that I said.
Speaker 2:No to our budget, but look, it's. Um, yeah, I agree, and this is one of the really important moments of being like okay, cool, what do I actually need to pay attention to in my business? And also being really aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are. So you know, my strengths don't lie in, like, conflict resolution with clients. My strengths lie in setting up processes so that stock take is done in a certain way or whatever. Like we've just got totally different strengths and weaknesses 100 and it's important to learn when to lean into that and then
Speaker 1:to step out of it and even with the renovation, we had different strengths. Your strength was building it out and having everything like. I truly think that we fulfilled our roles, that you, like designed it, created it with hannah and able to like, you guys created the vision. The trades pulled it off, pete kept everything running smoothly and like worked his ass off and for me, I was able to shine when I was able to actually start doing things.
Speaker 1:So all the painting like I was in charge of the painting, which again, that sounds so basic but like painting every inch of that salon is a really time-consuming job. I was painting every day for like five days, over and over and over and over. It is super time-consuming and physically, when I was able to start actually getting in there and physically cleaning, physically moving things around, that's where I shine, because that's something I can do really really well. You know, didn't see you picking up too many of the basins, those sort of things. Oh, I'm not there for heavy lifting, darling no, and Nikki will actively say I don't do heavy lifting.
Speaker 2:I was like guys, I got a manicure last week, so I won't be lifting a single thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I absolutely butchered my manicure, but worth it. But that's where we can show up differently, or like the late nights. I was happy to be there until you know, whatever time it needed to happen, because I can do that, I can. I can show up in that way and be really physically present. That doesn't mean that nikki was just like sitting back and having the manicure. She was definitely in there and we were all working our asses off.
Speaker 2:Let's be honest like mama went home, but I was like all right guys the sun's gone down. That's it for me. Absolutely. I'm like a chicken. I've got to go home when nikki was actually.
Speaker 1:You were mama hen going in to get the chickens in, because yeah, the chickens that go.
Speaker 2:They go back into their hut after dark yeah, hutch, isn't it whatever?
Speaker 1:anyway, whatever we're not, look, we're not wordsmiths or um, we're not yeah but I just want to point that out of like how this can look, and it doesn't mean that you know Nikki didn't do enough, I didn't do enough, or anything in between. It means that we played our roles exactly as they should have been, as we do in all of our different levels of life and business.
Speaker 2:Totally but also understanding that, like each person's role can look totally different and just accepting what each other contributes, as opposed to looking at what each other doesn't do. Enough of you know, and my manicure could not take lifting up those basins.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest it was a smart move. I chipped mine. I'm still not thrilled about it and I had to move the appointment tonight. So that's not getting done for another four days. So that's commitment. So the first week was when we went and got the nails done, because that's another trade through and we're like, oh yeah, we'll go and get some manicure but anyway.
Speaker 2:So we got all of our quotes, got everything together and then started working out a realistic budget and what we would be looking at realistically to spend. So also keeping in mind that while you're closed, you've still got things like rent and overheads and wages and everything to pay for on top of your renovation costs. So when you're doing this, your usual break even of your business needs to be separate from your renovation budget, so you need to allow for both. That's really important because if your usual break-even is $10,000, $15,000, whatever it is, you've got to add that account for that on top of your renovation cost. That's massive. It's a huge commitment, huge.
Speaker 2:But we started the reno, trades came in the first week and we also had everything pre-planned out to a T. So we thought of absolutely everything and we made a really clear schedule. So, after consulting with all of the trades, we sat down and worked out okay's a rough time frame for everything, accounting for things going wrong as well. So we accounted for things like what happens if we drop all of our tiles and they smash, what happens if the builders all get gastro and they can't start for a couple of days. So we like literally thought of every whack job scenario that we possibly could and started planning out a schedule of when we could schedule each trade to come in and you know they were working on top of each other at different points to make sure that we could get the job done. Then plan we planned for things like rubbish removal, um booking, storage facilities and really getting clear on like the little nitty-gritty things like simple logistics like where are we going to put all of our stuff while we're renovating, and really getting clear on like the little nitty-gritty things Like simple logistics, like where are we going to put all of our stuff while we're renovating.
Speaker 2:So we started planning all of those things out and then asking friends and family you know people that we, you know the people that we're talking about, people that you can call on for a favour. Then we went through things to support ourselves and our families during the renovation period, so things like childcare, food delivery services, so that we weren't just eating junk food and shit the whole time, so that we had like pre-packaged meals. So that was sort of how the process went before anyone actually broke any ground. We started the reno on Good Friday and we had the demolition. Part of the renovation happened then, and then our builder started on the tuesday morning. The first week was really, really laid back for us, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:yep, it's great my favorite week that was.
Speaker 2:It was amazing.
Speaker 1:So we tess and I were- sort of we were still in there every day. We just didn't need to like. It was like we're still clean at that point. We were still in there every day. We just didn't need to like. It was like we were still clean at that point.
Speaker 2:We were still in there all day, every day, but the difference is we weren't doing things, because they were doing the framing and hanging the plaster and you know all of those electrical roughing and plumbing roughing, as I said tea and coffee is pretty much all I was doing and like you're good, you're good, you're good, great, you're good, you're good, you're good, great, perfect, all right, see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Same time, like we kind of had to get out of the way because we were in there and we were like we're just in the way being here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. That's where we sort of started the first week, and then the second week things got a bit more hectic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we did have a lot of rain one of the days and there has been issues with the apartments above with the drainage issue.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And what happened that day was that we had the fresh, of course, the fresh plaster done the day before and just as we had come in the morning of to have the tiler begin, we had to. Then, well, we came in and there had been a leak all over. I think it was like three, four of the walls.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where this fresh plaster had just been hung bloody plaster and fresh paint.
Speaker 1:One of them was a archway which we had molded for where we had our basin area. So it was an absolutely huge, huge, huge feat that we'd taken on. So naturally when this happened, uh, pete was the first one to see it. He was on site first. So he I think it was the when we were doing our conscious day, because we were he tried to source it and sort it as much as we could. So for everyone that is doesn't know, our day of being with our clients and our one-on-ones we spend on Wednesday. So we've got a solid day back-to-back of doing meetings and calls.
Speaker 2:So we're literally like back-to to back all day with client meetings and like mentoring calls yes, so what it has yeah, that's the other thing I forgot to mention. We're still running the other business while the rent was going on, naturally.
Speaker 1:Um. So what was happening with this was that we were on call, so pete was just trying to sort this problem as soon as he could. So he came in, saw that all the fresh plaster was drenched and had like all of the you know obviously for anyone that doesn't know plaster plaster can't get wet straight away. How many hours is it they can't get wet for?
Speaker 2:I don't know if any plaster should be wet at all.
Speaker 1:So Nikki got the, we got the emergency plumber out, that got resolved the tile, but again that pushed the trades back. I think was it half a day or a day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like half a day, yeah, yeah like half a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we then had to get the plasterers back, I think, to fix something, but then they ran late by like three hours. Our tyler came in an hour early, so then that also created a bit of um confusion amongst it. So these are some of the things that had gone wrong during that time, and again it was probably about half a day's worth of trade that got lost there. Third thing that went wrong one uh builder, I think got the measurement wrong for one of the rooms, so we'd ordered the amount of measurement that he told us to get for the tiles of how big that space was, and there weren't enough tiles. So the tiler got halfway through tiling the floor and then was like where's the rest of the tiles? And we were like what, and the tile? This?
Speaker 2:like what and the tile this was. This was hard because the tile place had it was like seven to nine day, seven to nine business delivery time frames because they're not stock center tiles, they're um custom tiles, so they're beautiful and we're about a thousand dollars worth of tiles short and a 95 delivery fee as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll add that to the budget.
Speaker 2:It was just an expense that we didn't need, so it ended up costing us a few grand extra, and then, obviously, we had to pay um the trades to come back out. And yes, do that again yes, so some.
Speaker 1:So there were a couple of things that went wrong. Uh, I'm just. The only other thing I can think that went wrong was that, um, we got a fridge delivered with a forklift.
Speaker 2:A forklifter like pierced the fridge. It was very bizarre.
Speaker 1:Which they were just trying to pretend was the sticker.
Speaker 2:The guy was like oh, it just looks like the sticker's ripped and I was like, oh no, the whole back of the fridge has got a big hole in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gone through steel. It's not the sticker.
Speaker 2:There were quite a few things that were unexpected.
Speaker 1:Yes, say popped up and reason that we're sharing this on. Also, sugar canister was broken that no one was accountable for like a big smash.
Speaker 2:And then yeah, like oh, what's that? And then we went out the back. There's just sugar everywhere but, no one said a word like all right, cool, we'll just carry on.
Speaker 1:Really hope no one wants sugar in their coffee but the point of this is why we're showing you some of the things that went wrong. What this can look like is that it's all in the way that you show up. I think with this as well. So, yes, although we had all the plan and we literally had a like time frame marked out at the front of the salon with this is the day that this person's coming, they're going to be done. This is going to be wrapped. We had it so scheduled and we had allowed for five days, three days of resetting and two days off, and, of course, we were right there until the 11th hour.
Speaker 2:It's always the way like you're sweeping up the building materials out the back door when the clients are rocking in the front door.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's not 100% completed. There are still things that we are working on and we've still got to finish off, as Nikki said, the furniture we always knew was going to be arriving later. That's on the back order. We've got a couple of bits and pieces that we need to finish off, but realistically, it's such a incredible space and the real thing that I really want to highlight with this is, even when things were going wrong, because of the way that we were communicating and all of us as a collaborative, and including the trades, with how they were showing up with each other as well, there was no egos, no frustrations, no yelling, no tense words.
Speaker 1:That I was so grateful for, because what I can remember from the first time that we built out and we have we've done renovations, but we haven't done a fit out, a full fit out, for 11 years, and what I can remember from the first time around, when we did it all those years ago, was how much I hated it, because I was so stressed out, I was so frustrated all the time I was and I was showing up in such shit energy, whereas this time around, we were really conscious about how we were going to show up. It wasn't perfect. We all had moments of, you know, freaking out or worrying or stressing, but I feel like we really, as a collective everyone that was in there, you know we were hugging. All the trades were like hugging. At the end we were hugging them.
Speaker 2:It just was a big cuddle fest, but it was like it was a pretty beautiful it was beautiful I just want to say every trade that we had on site cared so much about the reno and like getting it done on time.
Speaker 1:Yeah and they're beautiful people as well, like we really were conscious with the businesses that we were working with.
Speaker 1:We had really like it was a really supportive, beautiful environment there was. Everyone was checking in, even down to the music that was being played. We're all checking in and making sure everyone was good with it. The conversation is really beautiful. It was stunning like it was not. It's a complete opposite of what I think people would imagine construction sites to be. It was really beautiful, but I think that that really made a huge difference as well yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think, you know, going into it like with aligned people that you align with, every single trade that we had in there was beautiful and aligned and it was amazing. And I think back to when we did our first fit out and I'm like there were so many people that were on that site that were just like random, whereas we were really conscious about the decisions that we made of who to work with.
Speaker 1:But I really believe that the difference is, you know, and I lost my nerve like a few times in the reno- I completely forgot one of the things that didn't not go right, but just like the thing that held us back was the mirrors which we created ourselves, which are really really fiddly.
Speaker 2:The mirrors are so beautiful and they were really really really fiddly and that definitely, you know, there was different points where the pressure was on and I definitely lost my nerve with the mirrors and I was like everyone, just stop touching them. We need to just like let them go and we need to think of plan b, like we need to do something else completely different with the renos, with the mirrors, because it was becoming a bit overwhelming for me and then everyone just like sort of banished me off site and no one was going to talk to me for the night, which was a much better decision because my energy wasn't right for the job site. Yeah, my point here is at the start.
Speaker 1:I do just want to point out, though quickly, that that was also fair, because the color that we'd chosen was a like slightly off white, and when it was going on it was olive green olive green which these beautiful mirrors he was just the only one saying they're like cement, like cement stone mirror frames absolutely stunning and I really wanted these specific mirrors.
Speaker 2:And I showed pete and I was like, oh, I found these mirrors, but they're like three grand each. We're not gonna buy like 10 mirrors for three grand each, so you're gonna have to learn how to make them. And he did. But then the recipe that the colour company gave us it literally turned out olive green and I was like, oh my God, what are we going to do? You can't just paint them because it'll ruin the texture of it. But they turned out really beautifully.
Speaker 1:Can't believe how they turned out. But it was stressful that night and that was a 3am-er for anyone playing at home, but it was yeah, it was tense, but I don't feel like you weren't fair in being stressed. I honestly feel like you were saying what everyone was thinking. It was just that we were trying really hard to trust the process.
Speaker 2:So, other than that little one moment, there really wasn't any moment for two and a half weeks where anyone was going into a pessimistic or scarcity mindset and I really do believe that this came down to the intention that we put out there when we went into this renovation. So we were very careful of the language that we used going into this and you know we love a praccy tea, but being really intentional with the language that you used so previously I would very much be like, oh, I've got this renovation to do, and I really thrived on people thinking that I was like so busy and I had so many things on that made me feel so important, but I was really careful with the language that I used around it. So, rather than saying things like I've got this big reno and I'm so exhausted and blah blah.
Speaker 2:I really lent into. Now I feel really excited and you'll notice, even now people are saying, like are you exhausted? And I'm like, no, I feel really good, like I'm so proud of this, like today even someone asked like are you guys exhausted? And I'm like you know, I feel really good about what we've done. I feel really proud. Yes, it's like physically tiring, but look at what we've done. So, being really intentional with how we went into it.
Speaker 2:But I also think, just before this reno, you and I declared I remember saying this before the reno I am not going into this renovation, stressed, I am not going to have this renovation stress us out. This is going to be fun, it's going to be pleasurable, like it's. It gets to be that way if we want it to be. How many times did we say during the reno like it gets to be fun if we want it to be? So we literally made a choice for this to be a happy, fun, great experience and not be like a burden. And I truly believe that because we made that declaration and I said it to pete like 50 times during the reno we're not doing stress.
Speaker 1:I kept saying that we are not doing stress on this in this renovation except when you were stressed, where we did a bit of stress and then we came back around.
Speaker 2:Oh, like sunday night. I was like is everyone stressed out with me?
Speaker 2:three, two one stress um, but otherwise we were like it really was conscious that every time one of us would get a bit worked up, we'd like when hey, remember, we're not doing stress, this reno, let's just look at how we can pivot. There's going to be plenty of things and this is a really good even if you're not doing a reno. It's a really good metaphor to anything big that you go into, whether it's events, whether it's family stuff, whether it's business stuff, whether it's courageous conversations. It gets to be pleasurable if you want it to be and fun.
Speaker 1:You can enjoy it. Yeah, you might really enjoy it. Watch out, you might enjoy it. Well, I mean, we don't get any ideas, we're not renovating again for a long time, but I I really enjoyed the process, though did you I did really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I'm really grateful it's finished and I'm really glad it's it's finished now, but I think with it it's again. It's how we show. I remember the. I hated the first experience. I did not hate this experience. I actually really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I appreciated so much.
Speaker 1:I really was so grateful, especially for the people that we have, the people that came in and helped. We had so many people that stopped by to like, offer and check in with us. You know family support. We really have the most incredible like people around us.
Speaker 1:And then now watching the excitement from our crew and community of how they feel about the space and seeing that they can see how beautiful it is as well as we can, because even when you when it, you know we're pretty much there, but not quite. There are some missing pieces to the puzzle at the minute and you can really sit and focus on that, whereas, rather than doing that, hearing how much people are already like, wow, this is amazing. That's truly what people are saying when they're coming in and like, oh, I can't believe. Like how different this looks or how quickly you've, you know, turn this into this and like all of the things, but I think the appreciation that people have for the space that we've created it's going to take it to the frequency and the level that we want it to be yeah and it really is.
Speaker 1:Now we've created the salon that we are worthy of, and also our crew and community are worthy of as well, which is really pretty beautiful, and I feel really fucking proud of that. That we've been able to do that 11 years after beginning like that's pretty sensational stuff it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm really proud to. Yeah, tess, we end every episode in gratitude. What are you grateful for I?
Speaker 1:think I just said like I'm so grateful for everyone and anyone that helped during this process. Whether it's checking in like, however, you guys know who you are with with it, it comes down to like pretty much everyone in our world, so I'm so grateful for that. I am going to give a massive shout out to Pete because he really everything that he commits to, he gives 110 percent and I always I've got a. You know Pete's been my brother for how long now, brother-in-law for 15, how long you guys been together 15 16 years he's such a solid part of my world and someone that is so like.
Speaker 1:I rely on him so much and I can count on him and I value him so much, but watching how much he works and puts himself out to ensure that our dreams come true, it means the world to me. So, pete, I'm grateful for you and I love. I love you so much and I loved working together with him especially. I really enjoyed it. We had a lot of time together in the physical week and a lot of moments of just hanging out. We had a couple of Barneys over the musical choices.
Speaker 2:Just put on Taylor Swift and Pete was like, oh Actually, I think Pete's partial to a bit of Tay-Tay sometimes, but yeah, he did a great job.
Speaker 1:He did a sensational job. So I do really want to. I really have my gratitudes for Pete and also, yeah, no to Pete. I'm really going to stick with that, because then I'll start adding in everyone and we'll have a big long. I'll get cut off with the Oscars music. What about you?
Speaker 2:Nikki. Well, I'm just really grateful. Yes, I'm just really grateful. Yes, I'm really grateful for the renter and the space and the peats and all that sort of stuff for sure. But I'm going to take it a little bit of a different direction and say I'm really grateful for the steps that we took all those years ago when we asked for help in our business and got our first mentor, which led us to having a business that actually had systems, that then created a great team that then created happy clients that then created profit.
Speaker 2:That then created us to be able to do a reno, because I have seen so many businesses in our industry shut their doors this year so many, I feel like every time I log into instagram, it's someone else saying that they're closing their salon doors and we just did the most expansive thing that we've ever done in business and I'm really proud of that and I'm really grateful for that. But it's not lost on me that we have access to to this right now and you know, yes, we've worked exceptionally hard for it, but we've also decided, you know, to sit in a in a certain frequency and we're not available to sit anywhere else, so I'm really proud of that amen god, that was beautiful thank you so much for listening, guys.
Speaker 2:We will see you next week. Thanks guys, stay conch. Thanks so much for listening to this episode and hanging out with us today to hear more about our journey. Follow us on instagram at the underscore conscious underscore salon. If you're a shit speller, check the spelling of conscious or at a head hair underscore. Thank you so much for joining us today and we'll see you in the next episode.