A Perfect Project

This week we talk with Tracey Pitt of Bal­lara Boards about her inno­v­a­tive use of oak offcuts.

Words Miran­da Wilkinson

My mum died at the begin­ning of March.  She had been diag­nosed with lung can­cer on
Valentine’s Day, but things spi­ralled quick­ly down­hill and just over 3 weeks
lat­er, she passed away.  Then Lockdown
hap­pened.  We were sud­den­ly flung into
this strange no man’s land, try­ing to organ­ise her funer­al, while businesses
were shut, rules were chang­ing dai­ly, and peo­ple were iso­lat­ing.  It was heart-break­ing and dev­ast­ing; everyday
a new obsta­cle to deal with and not able to give her the send-off she truly
deserved. 

Then, like every­one we were stuck at home.  I felt numb and grief-strick­en, but strangely
grate­ful to not have to face the world for the fore­see­able, and I admit I
became a hermit.

I work free­lance in events: cor­po­rate hos­pi­tal­i­ty, sporting
events, trade shows etc.  And my husband
Dar­ryl, is a domes­tic builder.  So, almost
all the work in my diary was can­celled, and Dar­ryl wasn’t able to work in
people’s houses. 

We remem­bered that we had had an idea last year and then not had time to see it through to fruition.  The idea was this: when Dar­ryl refur­bish­es a kitchen with a beau­ti­ful sol­id oak work­top, they have to cut out a hole for the hob and the sink, and this wood could be recy­cled to make chop­ping boards, bread boards and plat­ters etc.  Lit­tle did we know this would become a per­fect Lock­down project and pop-up business.

We had about 40 boards in var­i­ous shapes and sizes stored
away in his lock-up doing noth­ing, and now we were ready to see if we could do
some­thing with them.  So, we coat­ed them
in tung oil which keeps the wood look­ing nat­u­ral­ly fresh while having
antibac­te­r­i­al qual­i­ties.  We also
researched get­ting a logo stamp to burn onto the under­side of each board. 

Then I set about adver­tis­ing and postage options, but we decid­ed to try and keep it local to Lon­don due to the boards being very heavy and the postage increas­ing the price quite con­sid­er­ably.  I made an Insta­gram page, and imme­di­ate­ly sold a one to a stranger and a few to friends and family.

A good friend, friend Mandy Lid­dell, who is a direc­tor and film­mak­er (and also affect­ed work­wise due to the pan­dem­ic) asked me if she could do some footage for us.  We had no plan, and we shot it in a cou­ple of hours using what we had to hand as props.  A cou­ple of days lat­er she sent me the results and I couldn’t believe it, it looked like an advert for Mas­terchef!   I post­ed it on social media, a few friends shared the post and sud­den­ly I had lots more orders.

It’s only been a cou­ple of weeks since then and most of our
cus­tomers have been peo­ple we know so far. 
It’s been great to recon­nect with so many peo­ple who are your social
media friends; you’ve known them at some point in your life but aren’t in
con­tact in day-to-day life any­more. I
can deliv­er them to their doorsteps and say hi, and I have start­ed to come out
of my her­mit-shell again.

Dar­ryl has since returned back to work and is busier than ever, so we won’t be repeat­ing the exer­cise as he is too busy and it is too time-con­sum­ing for him.  But it was per­fect for Lock­down and it’s made me think about what else I could do to start a busi­ness from home.  We will see.

www.ballara.co.uk
@ballara_builder
@ballara_boards
@bondi_bodi_creative