For the longest of time, me and Kirst have been talking about goals for life. The dream is to open a small shop for all of our interests.
We realised that we can’t just jump straight into that as our lives don’t currently have the capacity, but it is in the longer-term plans.
I randomly asked one if we should start a podcast and we both instantly knew this was going to be great idea! The 12th of March we started our discussion.
When? Where? How? We made the decision it would be a besties podcast based on our love of books and baking… we knew we needed a name Besties; Books & Bakes was born!
We started to establish what content would be needed and how we would promote ourselves. Social media is a great way to reach out to people with the same interests as you. We setup a Facebook page, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
So, we are now in the process of planning our first episodes. We need somewhere to film them… Kirst said our houses on our sofas as they would be the comfiest. We can take it turns to make a baked good and we can eat it while filming the podcast. That’s the easiest way to incorporate baking into the podcast and we get to eat cakes! Win!
I managed to create an image for our pages to use as the profile picture. Its so cute.
While discussing all of this, I decided I wanted an external space to sit with my books. I’d seen on TikTok that someone had made an amazing book shed in her garden (bookish with jess) and thought this was an amazing idea! I’m thrifty, so looked on FB marketplace for summerhouses that were reasonably priced or cheap. Found an absolutely beautiful summerhouse in Leamington – for FREE as long as we dismantled it and collected it. Bargain!
Me, Troy and Rubi headed over to collect it in Troy’s works van. We arrived at the lady’s house at just gone 3pm ready to take it all down. Troy started by removing the felt off the roof and taking the roof apart… easy… or not it took us an absolute age!
We then took the roof beams off and to the van to load, only to realise they were too long. Rubi started cutting them down to make them fit.
We completely underestimated the sheer size of the shed. It was huge! Once the roof was off, it was just as simple as disconnecting the wood. They were push fit/ tongue and groove.
By the time we had got the majority of it disassembled it was dark it had been 4 hours we all had cuts and bruises and realised it wasn’t going to fit in the van. We left the floor down as we couldn’t see to take it apart and knew we could build our own. Luckily the lady had a bungee cord we could use to tie off the door. We used a bit of shrink wrap and secured the door enough to get to the local B&Q to buy rope. We tied off the door and off we went.
We ordered a well-deserved Chinese and picked it up on the way home!
Unfortunately, 2 days later we had our bunnies die unexpectedly so this tied up our time and resources.
We started building the foundations. We had to level the ground and slab it. We then built a wooden frame for the flooring to sit on. This has so far been the biggest obstacle. Theres been a lot of expanding foam! And a lot of swearing
She’s been painted a wonderful green and black. This took so long! The original colours were Grey and Light blue! It’s been hard to cover it, but it looks amazing now. We replaced the Perspex in the window and door. These were also found on FB for cheap. She has flooring – free on FB.
She has electric, lighting and heat. We have used a long extension from our outside shed. The lighting was brand new on FB and looks amazing. My brother gave me a little electric fire that’s worked amazingly with the free fireplace that came with the shed.
We got given a really comfy sofa from Troy’s dad so cost us nothing! I had a spare unit that I’ve put in there.
I’ve started decorating with gold frames and book quotes (the gold on black looks awesome)
It’s coming together nicely and should hopefully be ready soon so me and Kirst can record content in there! We’re probably going to do the first few episodes in our houses though so we can get started sooner rather than later.
I’m hoping this takes off so we can the put a plan together for the future projects and opportunities.
We already have some merch that we can potentially give away!
Exciting times ahead!