Whew! It has been a whirlwind these past couple weeks. Katharine and I have been working hard to get the shop open and ready for spring and we think we have made some great progress. The goal is to open the doors by the time the weather breaks which means next week or the way this winter has been going sometime in July. The is still a gigantic amount of work to be done but we are feeling scrappy.
The storefront is old and dirty. It's time to get some paint up.
One of the big projects of the past week has been refurbishing our storefront. I'm not sure how old it is but it was definitely in rough shape. With all of the things we had going on we tried to outsource the prep work to a local handyman but he was a no show so we got to work. We scraped and putty'd our butts off. We then got the thickest primer available and went to work. It looks pretty decent now and we hope to put the final paint up this sunday if the weather holds out.
getting there
Up until last week we were getting electricity from the adjacent building via extension cords. Lighting was through string lights and there was no bathroom (thanks to our neighbors at the Pittsburgh Public Market) . This week walls finally went up, a bathroom was installed and we got our own electrical service.
We decided to make our own light fixtures for the shop. My grandfather donated a drill press to the shop and we put it to good use. We drilled out some gas pipe to make anchors for a wires suspension system to hang string lights.
Good thing those glasses fit her face perfect....
Check it out. Ceiling fans and lights installed.
We have started to hang our filtering, and we are lucky to have some great friends. Gregg Shanefelt was at the shop till 2 A.M with us last night hanging grid wall. We think it looks better than slat wall and it allows us to hang product without hiding the brick we put some much effort to expose.
We got a brand new door!
So...We hope to be open really really soon. If you come by the store next week during business hours Tuesday-Friday we will be at the shop from 10 A.M-7 P.M and 11 A.M- 5 P.M Saturday and Sunday. We are calling it a soft opening. We won't be fully functional but we we are welcoming visitors. We should have some bikes on the floor and product merchandised. Here goes nothing. Thanks for all of your support.