mâché renos | Stage 3

The last few weeks have been action packed. Christmas crept up like a wild elf, and next minute.. Happy New Year! We hoped to catch the fireworks from our city roof, but unfortunately Dans and I fell asleep on the couch at 10.00pm and woke up to the dog snoring. Ah well. Thank goodness for Instagram stories.

Co-founders, Jac, Dans and I had an epic last few days moving everything from the old mâché to our shiny new home - 451 Pulteney St, Adelaide 5000. At least the Budget Truck had good air-conditioning in the heat wave. Yesterday was a huge sigh of relief after successfully transporting all our plants safely. I can’t wait to grow our green family into a happy urban jungle.

We are yet to take a holiday, but that’s because we’re on a tight schedule to open our doors on the 7th January 2019! We still have lots to do, but our coworking environment will be fully functional. Each week from now, we get to focus on the finer details, and also some major ones! Some we can’t reveal yet..

Have we got your interest? Email us here: hello@mache.space

What did we achieve over the last few weeks? Ah that’s right, Dans sanded the oak floors downstairs for what felt like eternity. I then sealed them 3 times like a pro with a matte finish sealer. It’s a 3 hour wait time between coats, so I took a few power naps, roamed the aisles of Bunnings, ate snacks and edited the Vlog.

Watch the Vlog here and subscribe to our YouTube Channel -

Our space is already starting to feel cosy, with some additions of furniture, which has been an absolute joy to put together.. HA! Meanwhile, Jac’s been busy renovating the kitchen downstairs. He’s had some late nights laying down floating floors, fixing and fitting stuff and installing a filtered water tap so we can drink water of the gods.

Jac’s also a digital wiz and has designed our kitchen upstairs. It will provide space for hangs, feasts, coffee and good conversation. Dans and Jac will build the upstairs kitchen next week. Hopefully they survive the process. Reading a manual is not my forte, so I will be on treat duty, ensuring everyone stays hydrated and fed with the finest takeaway. I should probably give myself more credit though, as my skills with tools are improving and I have developed some pretty gangster biceps.

Complete tangent, Jonny’s Popcorn delights Sweet and Salty is the best reno snack and locally produced in South Australia. Thanks Jac for your tasty offering during our mammoth move and tough times. Sorry for my giant handfuls and leaving you with just the corns at the bottom of the packet.

Joanie

It’s a tricky time of year to get tradies and craftsmen on board, but luckily we have some amazing mates who have been superheroes. Massive shoutout to Matt Lott who built our super slick deck in our event space / yoga studio.

He’s gone glamping in his homemade caravan called Joanie. He built her with his bare hands and named her after his Grandma. Isn’t she gorgeous?

Matt will be back soon for some finishing touches on the deck and probably some more work we throw his way.

Need some carpentry work done? Hit Matt up: lott31@gmail.com

Special thanks also goes to Ben Turner and his team from Built By Ben. They worked faster than Santa’s little helpers and erected the bones of a wall downstairs. This will divide a snazzy office on one side and private desk spaces on the other. They will finish off the wall in the next few weeks and it’s going to be quite the feature!

We had some chirpy visitors last week which lifted our spirits! Including our good interstate friends, Ed, Lucie and Ryan, and Dans’ twin sis Gin. It’s been very affirming to share our visions with people we love and see the excitement in their faces. It makes the long hours worth it and reassures us we are on the right track. Also, big thanks to Gin for helping out with the paint brush! Black paint is a risky colour but she totally nailed it. Hope her clothes aren’t too destroyed.

That’s enough from me, on behalf of the mâché gang, we hope your year is off to a flying start and we can’t wait to show you our space and welcome new members to our community.

We have small, medium and large office spaces on offer, as well as flexi, dedicated and private desks, event and workshop space and a yoga studio. Our future plans are super exciting, but the present looks pretty good.

Until the next instalment..

- Izzy

mâché renos | Stage 2

We survived the second week of renos. For those that missed the first stage, read here.

It feels like we’ve been at 451 Pulteney St for years! Working on the floors for 100+ hours makes you really connect with the place.

Last week we removed staples, but this week Dans finished sanding the relentless floors. A mammoth achievement! The green layer of carpet glue was so thick, every step felt like you were stuck to chewing gum. After much hard yakka, the floors are smoother than James Brown’s lyrics.

The first coat of floor sealer was so satisfying. We sealed the edges of each room to perfection, and then brushed the sealer across the floor with the snazzy broom thingo we got from Bunnings. Special thanks to their riveting online tutorials. Whatever you do, don’t get yourself stuck in a corner!

Anyhoo, the sealer takes about 3 hours to dry. The second and third coats were not so fun. We were over it and ready to pour the whole tin on the floor, order pizza and call it a night. Our inner hero persisted with even strokes. I chanelled an ice hockey champion, imagining I was brushing the sealer across the floor like a puck approaching the goals.

We won the match in the end. The pine looks super fine. We know over time the floors will lose their perfect glow, with scuffs and stains from all the foot traffic. We will grit our teeth and smile, and remind ourselves that nothing is permanent, and the scars are part of the story.

Midweek we had some visitors! Beno (Ben Turner) is one of our best mates and is also one of the most talented and precise carpenters in Adelaide. He runs a tight ship business, ‘Built by Ben’. He can pretty much do anything, and came in with a cape and cut a hole in our wall. It’s no ordinary hole. It’s a gateway to possibility and friendship. Ok, I’ve lost my marbles, but it’s a really nice hole with some neat woodwork. We now have a place to hang, have a cup of tea and gaze out the window. Our coworkers are gonna love it.

Need some work done? You can find Ben here @built.by.ben. Flick him an email: ben@builtbyben.com.au

What happened next? I spent half a day removing tacky stickers from the windows with a paint scraper. Yay for natural light, but a big nay for stickers. Whoever stuck those 2001 Crows footy stickers to their window, thanks a lot, ya tosser. Just jokes. I’m a yoga teacher and would never think badly about another human and their actions.

Guess what!? We got our first pieces of furniture up the stairs. Thanks to another talented fellow, Matt Lott. He custom built these gorgeous couches by hand! What’s even more remarkable is he repurposed some old couches that were heading for the skip. He built the amazing frames and brought the couches back to life. He’s basically an expert at Furniture First Aid.

Check out his handy work! We are also pretty excited because Matt’s building us a deck in our event space, but this is a story for later. If you are in need of some creative hands, cabinetry and more, hit Matt up: lott31@gmail.com

On the wettest and windiest day of the week, our beautiful friend Verity was moving house and donated some AMAZING trees and plants that will green our coworking space and yoga studio. We came to her house in a Budget Truck and filled it with leafy goodness from her glorious garden. The trees are ginormous, almost as big as Verity’s heart. We are so grateful for her donation, and our urban jungle dream is becoming a reality.

How did we get the trees up the stairs? With great difficulty. Luckily co-founder Jac returned from Japan in the nick of time. He helped Dans heave them up in a sack truck and I helped push from below. I fell into a fit of laughter as Dans became engulfed in foliage. We finally got the trees up the last step and rolled them into our breakout area of joy. After an arduous journey, we only lost one leaf.

Watch our mâché renos | Stage 2 Vlog below and subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

Until the next installment..

- Izzy

mâché renos | Stage 1

Izzy here, bringing you a dusty update from our new digs in the CBD - 451 Pulteney St, Adelaide 5000.

Current status: In the fog of renovations, not sure what day it is, covered in sawdust, typing on a milk crate.

What a ride these last few months have been! After many moons planning, negotiating, strategising and designing, we signed a new lease a little over a week ago.

Mâché coworking is set for expansion! The big move has been a progressive dream of ours. We are offering tip-top offices of all sizes, and private, dedicated and flexi desks, space for events and workshops, and wellbeing and yoga.

To get to this point, it has taken many late nights and solid teamwork between co-founders, Dans, Jac and I. Behind the scenes we’ve been busy beavers creating design work, and preparing and sharing content. Last week we kicked off DIY renos with a bang, we’re feeling pretty tired but spirits are high.

Jac has been working super hard over the last few months, juggling life as a landscape architect. He is having a well-earned holiday in Japan with his lady Arlyn. After soaking up the Zen, he will be returning full of creative inspiration, and we have a suspicion he may grow moss in every corner. We welcome the tranquility and hear it does wonders for productivity. Jac sent us these postcards below, from Gion on the left, and Ginkakuji on the right.

In other news, we made our first Vlog! We captured the last week on our phones when we got the chance.

Watch below and subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

Dans and I have been preparing the foundations of our new space, removing carpets and lino, and pulling out MILLIONS of stubborn staples. We are a resilient couple, but this was a new experience we got to share together, for many days! Metaphors about floors helped get us through, as well as the bakery treats, tea breaks, and Indian Delights next door. We can vouch for the Aloo Gobi, a fine dish indeed. We are working our way through the various cuisines in the hood and our taste buds are most impressed.

After the last staple was pulled out from the godforsaken floors, we bashed in the nails and probably annoyed our new neighbours. We didn’t realise how loud we were until we took off our earmuffs at 11pm one night. Oops.

Days rolled into one, and I sanded and patched up walls while Dans retrofitted some floorboards and replaced the damaged ones. Bring on the putty! Patch.. patch.. patch. Done.

At long last, like a blaze from the heavens, we saw the light. It was time to sand the floors. And sand some more. Nothing could be worse than the staples.. surely. As my mum always says, there is always hope.

Off we went to Bunnings for the thousandth time. We write lists but always forget something and have to go back again. Dans loses me in the plant section and reminds me to stay on task. We promise this blog is not sponsored by Bunnings, but we should contact them and see if we can get some sick deals.

Where were we? Sanding.

‘Mr Sandman, give me a dream’

And that Dans did. The floors scrubbed up real nice.

Thanks for following,

Until the next instalment..

- Izzy