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Project & Clients

10 Acres The Kitchen
620 Humbolt Street, Victoria, BC
- Tenant Improvements (furniture, fixtures and furnishings)

Samantha Weeks Design Group brought us in to bring a little farm to The Kitchen. Take a peak at their website to see what they are all about, or better yet, get in there and have a look and a meal! We installed a big feature wall of salvaged wood, all picked-up within a few kilometres of the location. There's also a few of our shelving units there, used to highlight some of the farm-fresh products you can pick up along with your meal. They have mounted pictures of the farm on our salvage tiles. What a great look. Those coat racks are ours, too. Loved working with these folks - they are so committed to farm-to-table. Our business approaches align well, too: Local and inspired by our region. 

Ocean River Sports
1630 Store Street, Victoria, BC
- Tenant Improvements (cash counter and salvaged materials provision)

Victoria is a small town. Redbrick moved in the top floor of this Store Street heritage building. Their new downstair neighbours, Ocean River Sports, saw our tables and asked, 'who did that?'. We got the call to build their cash counter at the front of the store, and provide some salvaged materials for other components of the tenant improvements. We designed a counter that could re-purpose and upcycle some cabinets from the old location, then framed them all together. We then built a countertop and faced the box from locally salvaged materials. 

Redbrick
​200 - 1630 Store Street, Victoria, BC
- salvage, design & build of furnishings

Founded in 2011 in Victoria, B.C., Redbrick was established to help developers build better software. Redbrick is a global name with reach in 200 countries and counting. The need for their technologies led to exponential growth of their team and a move from Market Square to nearby Store Street. New space = new furniture.
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The main table in the water-facing, break-out room is 10 feet long, by 40 inches wide. It is a beast. We attached the beefy, picnic-table style legs on-site, or we would have never got into the space (no elevator). The stand-up table has the same feel, but at at a smaller scale. With all the raw Doug-fir framing showing it's orange hue throughout the space, it was time to knock back that strong colour and add some white wash. Doug-fir salvaged from nearby Fan Tan Alley. Their space is above Ocean River Sports, outlined and pictured above.

Victoria Distillers
9891 Seaport Place, Sidney, BC
- salvage, site supervision, design & build of components

Victoria Distillers is open for business! This project has been a game changer for Hammer & Tidy. Under an umbrella title of Site Supervisor, I tackled a wide range of responsibilities. The 8500 square foot building, built in 1991, had gone through many iterations. Originally designed as a conference centre, most people experienced it by going for dinner at the Captain's Table restaurant and Mineral World. One of the drywallers walked into the space saying, "Dude! I was like totally here as a kid on a field trip!" It remained empty for years, and then was reborn as a film set for the single season of Grace Point, an American remake of the British series Broadchurch. My job began with trying to figure out what had been done to the building, what was worth keeping and what needed to be replaced. All that needed to be reported out to our team of architects and engineers. Just figuring out what was real and what was made for TV took some time and effort. For example, in what was designed as a police station, there was dozens of fake plugs, lights and HVAC vents located around the room. Then I worked with the Marker Group, owners of both the building and Victoria Distillers, to bring in and site supervise a great team of trades to transform the space into a 1000 square foot tasting room, a future lounge and the rest? Production, production, production. That included a new floor sloped to drain, the steam plant, miles of pipe and conduit and making sure we had a door big enough (14' x 12') to get the new still into place. Samantha Weeks put together the design for tasting room and washrooms and I was able to bring my focus on up cycling design to the production side, using materials salvaged from the site for fixtures, baseboard, and window trim. On top of keeping everything scheduled and on the critical path, I was able to squeeze in the Shou-sugi-ban work throughout the tasting room. With all the square footage of burnt material required, I came home smelling like a campfire regularly. We were able to use cedar soffit material salvaged from the site for most of the wall surfaces, and shipping material that boxed up the California-sourced bottling line for the lounge tables. Seeing the space filled with neighbours and supporters at the open house was just as rewarding as seeing the first runs of product hit the bottling line. 
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The Ridge Roadhouse Pub
397 Donner Court Gold River BC

Gold River is about 4 1/2 hours north of our home base in Victoria. The destination was a full renovation of a pub in this former mill town. Our brief was to build 37 feet of double plank bar top, and another 53 of single wide around the pool table, using the 16" wide, 2" thick Doug-fir planks salvaged from Victoria's Chinatown. Rick Silva joined me for build. The planks, already jointed for glue and biscuits headed up before us to acclimatize. We were hoping to see some Elk on the way up but settled for a group of sea lions in the harbour. We had to squeeze this one in between some other projects, so we pulled some long days. Thanks to the good people at the pub, the kitchen was still putting out meals for the contractors, and accommodation was right next door. Our last day was 19 hours straight time. Thank goodness the coffee was always on! 

The Surly Mermaid Eatery
9851 Seaport Place, Sidney, BC
- salvage, base build / site supervision, tenant improvements, design/build

Hammer & Tidy managed all the base build for this project, and a major chunk of the tenant improvements. The space had been empty for a while, and used to be a popular seaside restaurant. Nothing remained from that life, except a tile covered bar and 90's era, 'hot-tub-time-machine' ski lodge styled fireplace. We did the demo work and managed trades including the great guys from Titan Electric, Dean Park Plumbing and Playsted Sheet Metal. We gutted the kitchen and brought in a completely new fan and fire-suppression system. Salvaged wood on the wall came from a nearby 3rd Street, pre-demo salvage; trim is leftover Cedar from our Patagonia build (originally sourced from the Royal Victoria Yacht Club docks); galvalume from window cut outs from a Saanich farmhouse addition and the bar top and shelves  is made from Doug-fir sourced from Victoria's Fan Tan Alley. We added a white wash to the bar for a unique look. The clients have added a fantastic patio overlooking the marina. Great spot for a post sail beer and meal in summer. Warm and cosy on the inside for those cold winter days, too. 
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Patagonia Victoria 
616 Yates Street, Victoria, BC
- Tenant Improvements (build)

In partnership with Rick Silva, we delivered the woodworking for Patagonia Victoria. Our material was salvaged from the old cedar docks at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club - parking line paint and bird dropping patina included. We did the build for the great guys at Aryze Developments. Our creative brief in front of huge stack of beautiful salvaged material? Have fun! And we did have fun. A cash desk, wall paneling, tables, benches, posts, display boxes. We integrated angle iron into 20 foot plus posts, and made the benches and mirrors in the change rooms. We even made the sandwich board to City of Victoria specifications. Modern Home Victoria did a great piece on the project, that you can find on my 'Mentions' page, right here. Rick and I continue to collaborate, playing hockey for the Marmots, other design/build projects and building tables. Follow us on Facebook: D-men design/build

The Meridian Residences 
9808 Seaport Place, Sidney, BC
- salvage, site supervision, build

We were asked to transform the old gift store for Mineral World, Pebbles, into a show suite for The Meridian Residences, a 24 Unit Condominum destined for Sidney's Third Street. Our team did the full demo, temporary walls, paint and electrical. We facilitated the bamboo floor laying and supported the cabinet install from the great guys at T. Russell Millwork. We finished off with the appliances and Sign Wave signage hanging. We even did the Ikea furniture build (I now have 12 more allen keys in my collection). The project was a little outside our 'wheelhouse' but it was a great challenge to tackle and deliver.

The Dock
Fan Tan Alley,  Victoria, BC
- tenant improvements

This project was all about up-cycling. This collaborative, shared workspace  is in a second floor unit with windows out onto Fan Tan Alley. Doug-fir for the conference tables came from across the alley. Wood for the feature wall were offcuts from projects completed across Pandora Avenue in Market Square, and from pallets donated by Swans Brew Pub down the street, still cold from storage in their cooler. I had made a couple of gift boxes from pallets and was testing sizing for a friend that appreciates locally brewed beer. That led to a, "hey, do you want some more pallets?" conversation. The leg on the kitchen counter was a dumpster-dive-find at Phillips Brewery, a couple blocks away. I painted out a few of the boards on the feature wall with leftovers from my daughter's bedroom (yes, she has a strong design eye already). I had in mind those DNA test strips when I laid them out. I carried the same theme over  to the reception desk.

The Firelight Group
​Market Square, Victoria, BC
- tenant improvements

This project was a direction connection to the work at nearby Pacific Rim College. We framed-in and installed sliding doors to create a temporary board room. Insulated room/desk dividers included cork boards and blackboards for staff to individualize their workspaces in this open-plan space. Mission statement words were stencilled onto whitewashed plywood that once formed temporary sidewalks for The Union - a nearby condo build. We even build a server cart on wheels, to hide a bit of the tech. Some late nights meant being locked into Market Square (known for its ghosts), and exiting through the lounge of a Mexican Restaurant. 

Pacific Rim College
Market Square, Victoria, BC
​- tenant improvements, design/build

The good folks at Pacific Rim College really gave us an opportunity to run with an up-cycled approach. We were asked to compliment some work that they had already done on their reception desk throughout the rest of the College in Victoria, BC's Market Square. A feature wall, furniture, sandwich boards, kitchen and bathroom renos, a barn door between classrooms and a major edition to the Herbal Dispensary. The dispensary included new flooring throughout, cabinets, countertops, and iron pipe work for shelving. I have added a couple of before and after pictures. Our brief was to build on the up-cycled aesthetic with an additional focus on limiting what ended up in the landfill. That meant, for example, hiding the old mdf kitchen cabinet carcass and painting out the tired, '70s era tile in the bathroom. Materials came from shipping material, including pallets from the nearby Swans Micro-Brewery, and construction waste from The Union condos. 
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