My Crazy Beautiful Life: The Shop

I've thought of a great analogy for the history of our business and, in hindsight, I'm cutting myself some slack. When we started this business seven years ago, it was like a huge steel ball (think Indiana Jones) that we had to push up a steep hill. It consumed all of our time and energy to just keep the ball moving. A little background: When Rob first started building cases, he knocked out the wall between our family room and the garage, took out the carpet, and turned the whole thing into a shop. This worked fine when he was just building cases part time in 2000. It wasn't long before he had to choose between his regular, full time, benefit-paying, normal job and this crazy idea of building cases for a couple of local sound companies. We talked about the pros and cons and I encouraged him to take the leap. At the end of 2001, he took a huge risk, quit his job and moved into the back end of the warehouse of a company he built cases for. It wasn't much bigger than our garage, so about the time the new landlord tried to double the rent, we found the warehouse we are in now. The business was also busy enough that I quit my job to work with my husband- another HUGE risk. The new building was way too big for us at first, so we rented out the front end to an Embroidery shop whose owner is also a good friend of ours. (I was really afraid it wouldn't work out, but 3 years later, she is still there and we are all still friends!) Back to the steel ball analogy. It was about this time that Rob started running sound and by our second season in the audio business, the steel ball we had been pushing reached the top of the hill and started rolling down- FAST. Now all of our time and energy was taken up chasing the ball down the hill before it crashed and burned, taking everything we'd worked for with it. We outgrew the back end of our warehouse very quickly between sound gear and case material, but there wasn't the time, money or help to do anything about it. So the building stayed the same size and the stuff we put in it doubled and then quadrupled with no time or energy to get things organized. We were literally bursting at the seams last fall when we hired Dale to help us with a stage set-up in Nampa. (Dale had started the case business with Rob in the beginning, but that's a whole 'nother story.) One thing led to another and Dale came on to help us full time. We had no idea how we were going to manage to pay him, but it all worked out and by January, we knew we needed more space. We couldn't even move from room to room in the building we were in, so we rented out a big office space in the same business complex as our current space. The steel ball was rolling even faster downhill but now there were three of us chasing it. We moved into the new building, but as quickly as I would get it cleaned and organized, my time and attention would be needed elsewhere and it never became the lovely office I had imagined. And now we had plate glass windows for passer's by to see our chaos and clutter. In the fall, after a very busy summer, the steel ball seemed to slow down to a nice, steady, manageable pace. Dale took some much-needed time off, I turned my time and attention towards my kids and other enjoyable activities. Even Rob stopped for a bit to catch his breath. Strangely enough, the ball has continued to roll along quietly on it's own which gives me hope that the business may start to carry it's own weight soon. (Either that or we're headed for another steep incline.) Without the steel ball consuming our strength and energy, we've been able to turn our attention to the wreckage that has piled up over the years. We also have decided to let go of the new building and make the old one suffice. I resisted this at first, but the more I've thought about it, the more I know we'll benefit a great deal from it. Maintaining a warehouse, an office and a home is physically and financially draining. It's also one more thing for me to be responsible for!! I'm tired of being responsible, so we have (mostly Rob) gutted the old building and purged ourselves of at least a third of what was in there. Rob spent 3 1/2 days at the shop- not coming home at all- cleaning, throwing stuff out, painting, organizing. . . It feels so good to simplify!! The kid's and I helped as much as we could with the process and on Monday afternoon and evening, we all tackled the building room together. Zach sorted piles of hardware into separate bins:

Rob basically has a hardware store in the backroom:

Anyone need a dowel???

This room is the first one you walk into when coming in off of the back dock. It has been unusable for at least a year. Now it is a lovely, organized conglomeration of large tools on casters, case hardware, and truss. It will also be home to all of our lights which will hang from those bars in the ceiling.

We even dug through and organized cupboards. Gloria moved all of the pneumatic nails and staples to a more accessible location:

Rob has been finding a more convenient home for the things he uses the most. It will be so much easier to build cases when we don't have to spend hours looking for the tools he needs.

My job was to find and put away all of the stray tools that have wandered off over the years. Rob built a nice, big tool box with labeled dividers about 10 years ago, but it's been half empty for the last couple of years. I found enough tools to fill it to the brim!!

The kids had fun helping Rob destroy a work table that took up way too much space:

This is the middle room that will hold all of our cases. They will be packed very tightly, but I think we can make it work. Rob has always built his own cables and audio snakes as well as wiring up racks and building cables for customers. Before now, he hasn't been able to set aside a specific area for doing this. He spent a lot of time on this back corner which will provide him with everything he needs to solder cables to his heart's content:

We haven't seen this back corner since we moved in!!!! It's always been very tricky to get into when we pop a circuit breaker!!

This is the music area. It has been used by several different bands to practice in but we're setting it aside just for us. We'll put a small sound system here as well as the keyboard, a drum set and Rob's guitars. The rest of this room will be my office, a little break room and a couch and cupboard with a TV and the kid's stuff.