Faking Sanity

Posted by perian - 25/09/10 at 08:09:00 pm

WE SURVIVED! sleep now.

T minus 3 hours and counting!

Posted by mtlaise - 25/09/10 at 07:09:47 am

Well, I guess it’s officially here. In less than 3 hours, our bookstore/cafe will be open for business. A few fabulous friends and relatives have offered to help out throughout the day, for which we are extremely grateful. We’re now having breakfast and preparing for either a fairly low but steady day, or being run off our feet. And although the store closes at 6, our first event is also tonight – the local singer/songwriter’s association hosts a monthly coffee house at our store starting at 6 pm. It will be a long day, but if we survive, we have a bottle of ice wine waiting for us, and tomorrow, we can sleep in a few hours! Whee!

T Minus 45 Hours

Posted by perian - 23/09/10 at 01:09:48 pm

This is it.  The last 2 days before opening.  You don’t want to see our to-do list, trust me.  But we’ve made 3 loafs and 6 dozen cookies this morning and another 12-15 dozen are next on the list. And then a cheesecake. You would not believe how amazing the place smells!  Chocolate and ginger and cinnamon!

Tired and Sore, But Still Alive!

Posted by perian - 22/09/10 at 11:09:44 pm

Well, we’ve reached the last couple days before opening — and there has been no murders at all!  We’re working 12-14 hour days just trying to get everything done before Saturday, but being able to see the end of the tunnel is absolutely fabulous.  Of course, at the end of this tunnel looms the tunnel of RUNNING THE BUSINESS, but that will hopefully be a hell of a lot more fun!

I’m about ready to pass out at the computer, so I’m off. We’ll try to get pictures of the Grand Re-Opening up on Sunday!

Meet the Bun-Buns

Posted by mtlaise - 15/09/10 at 10:09:02 pm

Meet our first employees: Mostly Adequate Bun-Bun, and Super Bun-Bun!

The Bun-Buns helped us out at the store today: inspecting the last of the bookshelves that were put up today, supervising the sorting of the books, and even learning to ring in sales together.

And after all that, the Bun-Buns settled in for a well deserved coffee break!

Signs Part II: The Revenge of the Signs

Posted by perian - 11/09/10 at 08:09:35 pm

After a number of false starts we finally got our sexy new signs installed!  With the help of some lovely friends and family we tackled the high one on the side of the building that will hopefully catch people’s attention when they’re driving down the street:

There had also been a sign on the front of the building, on the overhang that you can see in the picture above, but it wasn’t very visible due to hanging baskets so we decided to just take it down and not replace it.  Instead, we designed this one to catch the attention of passers-by:

This one was a bitch to hang, I’ve got to tell you.  Firstly, when we went to look for chain to hang it with we got distracted by aircraft cable.  Strong and subtle, we thought, let’s go with that! So we bought four lengths of it and crimps to close off the loops.  When we went to hang it today we hit our first snag — the ends were frayed when cut, so they wouldn’t fit in the crimps.  Bigger crimps! we cried, jumping in the Insanity-mobile for our second trip to Canadian Tire of the day.  But then… oh no… what if we weren’t strong enough to crimp the crimps?  (Is crimp a verb?  If it isn’t, I hope you understand what I mean.)  So we scouted out the chain, “discussed” which would be the best and went with my choice.  Off we go, back to the store to hang the sign.  But wait!  The chain I had picked may have been prettier, but it also had much smaller loops… which wouldn’t fit on the Thingies (technical terminology, of course) we had purchased to connect the chain to the bolts in the wall.  Curses, foiled again! Back to Canadian Tire to go with the chain Angele had favoured.  Luckily, everything worked beautifully from there, or one of us may have been laying in the bottom of a ditch somewhere this evening…

And hey, if you look closely you can see a reflection of me in the window!  Not dead, yay!

Things Are Slowly Taking Shape

Posted by mtlaise - 06/09/10 at 08:09:48 pm

It’s been a busy few weeks for those of us Faking Sanity. Since you last heard from us, we’ve finished all the painting, and entered/categorized over 3,000 books into our system. We’ve also had all the carpets commercially washed; I forgot to take before and after pictures of the carpets, but the difference is amazing. On Friday, we received the last of our large deliveries, so we now have all our coffees and teas, as well as all the equipment to go with them!

We’ve also nearly finished setting up the dining room. The coffee bar is now in place, along with the coffee and espresso machines. That’s very exciting! We’ve also put out a few of the things that will be on our self-serve coffee and tea area, as well as pulling all the tables and chairs back out. It’s nice to finally see the progress, not just know it’s happening. Here’s a quick look. This afternoon, we also added a shelving unit and a nice little fridge just behind the coffee bar (please excuse the mess on the island – it’s our miscellaneous storage right now):

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