An abandoned auto repair shop at the junction of the Flushing industrial zone and Willets Point.
The moment the rolling shutter door was rattled open, a stench of aged engine oil, rotting rubber, and dead rats hit them, nearly knocking Sarah Mason over.
Sunlight struggled through the dust-covered skylight, illuminating this forgotten space.
"3,200 square feet, 6-meter high ceilings, three independent repair bays, and a separate office and storage room with glass windows in the back."
Holding a laser rangefinder, Alice spoke with the air of a commander, the red dot dancing across the oil-stained walls.
"Good God, Alice, are we really starting a business here?"
Sarah Mason held her nose, her high heels making a squelching sound as she stepped on the thick sludge.
She looked at the mountain of scrap tires in the corner and the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, feeling that the future was bleak.
"This place looks like a dismemberment scene from a horror movie. Even homeless people wouldn't want to live here."
"To ordinary people, this is a ruin, but to an engineer, it's a blank canvas. Now, we have the time and space to transform it into a cosmetic production workshop that meets ISO 22716 standards."
Alice pulled a pre-drawn CAD blueprint from her backpack and spread it out on a dusty old workbench.
"We'll divide the entire space into three zones."
"Zone 1, these two repair bays near the main door, is the contaminated area. It'll be used for storing raw materials, packaging bottles, and outer packaging processing. It doesn't need high cleanliness."
"Zone 2, the independent storage room in the back, will be converted into a changing buffer zone. Anyone entering the core area must change clothes and go through the air shower here."
"Zone 3, the innermost repair bay and the glass office, will be completely enclosed with color steel plates and sealant to create the core clean zone. All emulsification and filling will take place here."
"How much work is that going to take?" Sarah Mason stared at the blueprint in a daze.
"That's why we can't do it ourselves." Alice checked her watch. "The people I hired from Home Depot should be arriving soon."
Five minutes later, a battered van pulled up to the door.
Alice's "commando team," hired at the high price of $200 a day, had arrived.
Five burly Mexican workers got out of the van carrying shovels, sledgehammers, and high-pressure washers. They were led by a foreman named Jose.
"Jose, I want you to scrape every inch of oil off the floor, strip all the paint off the walls down to the red brick, and then wash it three times with a high-pressure water gun. Remember, every inch."
"No problem, little boss. As long as the money's right, we can lick this place clean." Jose took the advance payment and whistled, and the roar of machinery instantly echoed through the garage.
Days 1-5: Cleaning and Hardening. This was only the beginning.
The originally potholed and oil-stained concrete floor was thoroughly ground smooth.
Alice ordered industrial-grade epoxy floor paint.
This material, usually used in hospitals and precision electronics factories, was poured onto the floor bucket by bucket by the workers.
The greyish-white self-leveling liquid quickly covered all stains and cracks, drying into a mirror-smooth, seamless, and dust-proof grey floor.
The walls were painted with anti-mold white latex paint, and the once-dim garage became glaringly bright.
Days 6-10: Building the Lungs and Partitions. The most critical work was in the latter half.
Alice directed the workers to use light steel keels and double-layered gypsum boards to build a fully enclosed box deep in the garage.
All gaps were filled with industrial sealant.
"Alice, why are you installing so many fans on the walls?" Sarah Mason asked, puzzled, as she watched the workers install massive pipes and filter boxes on top of the box.
"These are the factory's lungs—a three-stage filtration system: primary, medium, and high efficiency. It will continuously press filtered clean air into this room."
Alice was standing on a ladder, personally debugging the control panel.
"It creates a positive pressure environment inside the box, meaning the air pressure inside is higher than outside. When the door opens, the air blows outward, so outside dust and bacteria can never get in."
"While it doesn't meet the Class 100 sterile standards of pharmaceutical companies, this Class 100,000 cleanliness system is already an overkill for producing skincare products."
Day 12: Power and Water. The garage's aging single-phase circuit couldn't handle industrial equipment.
Alice took charge personally, wearing insulated gloves as she pried open the main distribution box.
She cut all the thin incoming lines and replaced them with copper cables as thick as a wrist, connecting to 380V three-phase industrial power.
The water pipes were cut and connected to an RO Reverse Osmosis Water Purifier.
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