Faking Sanity

Database day! And Signs!

Posted by mtlaise - 27/08/10 at 07:08:41 pm

Yesterday was… DATABASE DAY! Woo! Here are my partners in crime in action.

…and here are our first books on the shelves!

… and finally, we picked up the first of our two signs!

The beginning of the end!

Posted by mtlaise - 25/08/10 at 07:08:33 pm

All the red paint is done! And all the light coloured walls but the tea display area are either complete, or waiting for their final coat fo paint! Whee! But the most exciting part? When we left today, we had 6 of our bookshelves up in the book room!

Tomorrow, we’ll finish putting up the bookshelves, and begin entering books, and Friday, we should finish the final painting! Oh, and did I mention our most awesome friend, who spent 20 hours on a Greyhound to come help us out for 2 weeks? Here she is with our newly primed island (which will be moved once dry) and our newly painted dining room.

Here is our coffee bar, before and after:

And here is my favourite – bookshelves in the book room!

Renos and photos

Posted by mtlaise - 19/08/10 at 07:08:41 pm

I have another set of before and a-little-bit-after photos. On the cafe side, we were originally thinking just a coat of paint, but thanks to a few creative friends, we came up with a new plan. Here’s the before:

Let me set the scene for you… The wall with the tiger painting is a false wall (just paneling nailed to a couple of 2×4′s) and hides a coffee station and small firdge. The wall attached to that one is also paneling; it  has a door in it just before the end pillar that has been painted shut.The counter in the foreground has a huge space behind it that is used only for storage at this point.

Here’s where we’re at about half way through the process (this shot is taken from the beginning of the brown carpet):

It’s not a great shot, I know. It was mostly just taken for myself, to prove we had finished priming the paneling walls, but I thought it showed the length of this section of the room well, and you lost a lot of that space given how it was set up before.

Those 2×4′s sticking out are the old coffee station walls. We’ll be chopping off the last two in the next day or so, now that we’ve managed to get them detached from the wall, and then placing the “wall” back where it was, but it will end at about 4 feet in height. It will be primed, and painted to match the rest of the walls here. That should open up the back area a fair bit. It will continue to serve as a coffee station, and will also house our espresso machine. The counter that was in the foreground of the first shot will be moved against the long grey wall in this one, just a bit in front of the coffee station, and the door that was painted shot has now been removed. this leaves easy access to the dining area and the kitchen from either side of the till/counter or coffee station, and allows us better visibility of both the cafe and book room from the till area. It also drastically changes the area where the counter used to be. The shelves behind that counter will now be used to display our loose leaf teas, travel mugs, cloth bags, etc, and will open up extra space for tables as well.

Whew! Not bad for a couple days work, even if the photos don’t show a lot of it! In the back of the dining area, everything red has now been primed except for the counter and the coffee bar, and the red walls at the front of the dining area just received their final coats today. Tomorrow, we’ll be painting those grey-primed walls with their first coat of red paint. Also, we’ll be picking up a friend tomorrow who is coming for a 2 week visit/work trip to help us out. Whee! Oh, and the front walls are now complete, but here’s how they looked after the first coat:

Done!

Posted by mtlaise - 18/08/10 at 08:08:23 pm

Well, sort of… the painting in the book room is complete now though: one coat of primer and two coats of paint on each of the walls, including the recessed book case. Woo!

We’ve also designed our 2 signs and priced out the local sign shops, we’ve reviewed the business banking plans for every bank with a branch in the city, primed all the trim in the lobby, as well as most of the red walls for the dining area and kitchen, and even got the first coat of paint on two of them. It’s so nice to finally see progress!

Also, the business partner arrived!!! Oh, perhaps that’s why things are moving more quickly… :)

Oh, and one of our two coffee machines arrived today, along with the rest of our coffee pots! Whee! Spending money is stressful until you see the stuff arrive.

You won’t believe it!

Posted by mtlaise - 16/08/10 at 08:08:57 am

Remember those pictures with the yellows and oranges, or those with the blue behind it? Well, I just pulled off some fixtures yesterday, and you won’t believe the colour that was under the blue. The EXACT shade of red we’re using!!! Why would you cover that with baby blue and mint green accents, or with 5 shades or yellow and orange?! Too funny. The previous owner came by to pick up a few of her things she had left and she commented on the fact that we were repainting it the way it used to be, and that the red took “a million coats to cover”. I guess that means we’ll want to keep the same colours for as long as we own the business! Glad we chose colours we know we love.

Progress! Before and after…

Posted by mtlaise - 13/08/10 at 09:08:37 pm

Finally! It was a long day – mostly because I took a long lunch break, but today, I finished the final coat of red paint in the book room, including all the trim.

Remember this?

It now looks like this (the whitish wall still needs to be painted, but that’s tomorrow’s job):

And this is the look of the red in the book room through the lobby’s cut out wall (due to lighting issues and the fact that the paint was still wet, the colour on the side wall is the most true):

I am the spackle queen! and pictures!

Posted by mtlaise - 09/08/10 at 09:08:43 pm

Well, I think we’ve mentioned that the space we got was a little rough around the edges, right? Let me give you a taste of how rough it was to start:

I’ve now learned to spackle, and here’s the proof. Here’s that same book room wall after I spackled and sanded it:

And, today, I finished priming the first wall of the book room (the grey is a tinted primer; the other wall is the original paint job):

Oh, and see the box in the back room in that last picture? That’s our brand new espresso machine! And behind it is a second box with a fair chunk of espresso-related products (cleaners, grinders, frothing pitchers, etc – not nearly as exciting, but just as important)!

[insert catchy title of your choice here]…

Posted by mtlaise - 04/08/10 at 11:08:18 pm

… I’m all out.

Today’s been a pretty good day in the big city of D.C. I got our business insurance all settled, found espresso cups, ordered our POS system for the shop, arranged for a pick up of the records we don’t want to keep, and got all of the big furniture into the back room thanks to some borrowed muscle (thanks, bri!).

Perian has also been busy frantically packing up the rest of our apartment in Calgary today (and tonight too, in all likelihood) for the movers who arrive tomorrow. I don’t envy her the next two weeks of working at her old job, and coming home to a completely bare apartment; as much as painting and cleaning are not fun jobs, I think I prefer them to the waiting.

I’ll be grabbing a few before shots of the shop before I start painting tomorrow or Saturday, to show the progression from Under the Willow to Faking Sanity for those who are interested. Stay tuned!

I’ve been the quiet one around here lately…

Posted by perian - 01/08/10 at 09:08:39 am

While mtlaise is up in Dawson Creek getting shiny new keys and panicking about carpeting and consignors, I’ve been stuck in Calgary, still working. And packing. And trying to sublet our apartment.  And more packing.  Not fun stuff to post about, though I may have some pictures later today.

You know that rule of thumb that starting a business will take twice as much money and twice as long as whatever you budgeted for?  Well, it may be a rule of thumb for a reason…

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