After the soaproom was framed and the roof was on, it was concrete time! Concrete truck after concrete truck arrived – a steady stream of them that left what would become the front yard of the soaproom a muddy mess filled with ruts everywhere. (Not that it bothered the kids – they love playing in the mud.)
They poured the inside of the soaproom first. The next day, they poured the front porch.
We all stood around watching, waiting for when we could put our handprints in the concrete.
Once all of the concrete had set up, they started building internal walls. This section would become where the soap is made:
And this section would become the media room, office, retail room, and breakroom:
All of the children made sure to inspect the quality of the work:
Once the internal walls were built, we got metal on the outside:
And once the metal was on, we got insulation, pipes, air conditioning, electric, and more.
Once we had insulation, and all of the pipes and cords and everything else was in place, we got metal on the interior walls and ceiling.
The warehouse parts of the soaproom have metal walls and ceilings because they’re easier to clean. The front half of the soaproom – the office, retail room, break room, bathroom, and media (green screen) room – have wallboard.
Once all of the metal and wallboard was up, we got things like vents, lights, doors, trim, and smoke alarms.
And once we had all of that, we could clean the soaproom and start filling it up!
It was so much fun watching (and helping when allowed) the soaproom be built. Mom and Dad didn’t know what we really needed when we built our first soaproom in Charlestown. But we learned a lot about our needs working in that space.
When it came time to build here in Scottsburg, we all put a lot of thought into this one. And it works so much better!