What's next: the year ahead at Zargari

Mid-year is when small businesses get honest with themselves. Here's where we land.

We've taken on three full-time jobs more than we planned for the first half, partly Sydney's housing market won't quit, partly word of mouth on the Hills District is what it is. That's a good problem; it just means we need to be deliberate about the second half so the quality doesn't slip.

What we're investing in: a second router setup so the joinery shop can run two pieces in parallel. A bigger jointer (the 200mm is being outgrown). And, finally, a properly catalogued offcut store. Spotted-gum scraps were stacked four-deep on a single rack; that's both fire-risk and inventory waste.

What's changing on the floor: every job from July will get a 30-minute structural review at quote time. That's the PhD background applied early instead of late. Means we catch the "you don't actually need a steel beam here" or "this cantilever's going to deflect more than the spec allows" conversations before they become a problem on site.

What we want more of: built-in libraries (the heritage scribe work is some of our favourite), restoration on 1900-1940s joinery, and engineered pergolas. What we want less of: small jobs under $5k. Not because they aren't worth doing, because we can't do them at the standard we want to.