raw materials » Building Out

people who aren’t helping

jim winstead — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:36:00 +0000

As it it is not hard enough to get a new business off the ground, there are jackals like the folks at Retail Business Supplies that will make a misleading sales call and then pretend you’ve agreed to place in order simply because you gave them your address (believing that they were confirming an order already placed).

We ended up having to send a certified letter to them, letting them know that we were going to destroy the stuff they sent unless they took it back. To their credit, Federal Express picked up the package today. So we’re only out a few bucks to send the letter and a few hours of researching how to deal with this sort of garbage.

The price they were trying to charge was ridiculous, of course. We could have gotten two or three times as many rolls for half the cost.

paint colors

jim winstead — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:10:14 +0000

You can’t see it very well in the picture, and some day I really have to take more pictures of our space, but the exterior colors we’ve used for the store are Behr Premium Plus from Home Depot. The dark slate color is called Sled (750F-6) and the white color is called Steam White (750E-1). Both are the exterior semi-gloss, although we’ve also used Sled on some interior beams.

yard sale!

jim winstead — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:49:32 +0000

If you have passed by the store recently, you may have noticed the construction work going on. So far, our awesome contractors have ripped out the drop ceiling in the front part of the store, patched up the now-exposed super-high ceiling, and constructed a couple of walls. We have shelving being delivered next week, and we’ll also be painting and putting in new lights and ceiling fans. Then the shelves will start to fill up. I’ll drag my camera over there and take some pictures soon.

But this weekend, we’re happy to be co-sponsoring a Yuppie Yard Sale. It’s not in our beloved downtown, but you should enjoy it anyways.

no gondoliers required

jim winstead — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:32:42 +0000

Today I spent some quality time at a nearby shelving store (near 7th and san pedro), looking at our shelving options for the store.

This is an example of the taller gondola-style shelving that we will probably have more than a few of in the store.

We still have to figure out exactly which shelving we want, and then coordinate the delivery and installation with the construction we are having done, but the selection at the store looked good, and the prices reasonable.

We’ll just have to do the buying a little earlier in the day, when the owner isn’t quite so toasted.

our new door

jim winstead — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 02:58:06 +0000

If you take a walk by the store, you may notice that we have shed the solid roll-up door in favor of a new grille door. Now you can see into the space all of the time. Soon you’ll start seeing that space get built out and fill up with stuff.

The installation was done by Kim’s Roll-up Doors.

end of an era

jim winstead — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:43:32 +0000

Almost all of the pieces from our FIRST | LAST show came down today, and we’re moving on to the next phase: building out the store. We’re meeting with contractors this week to look at removing the drop ceiling in the front of the store and build a wall to create an office and storage in the back, and we have been meeting with different distributors to figure out the best sources for the best art materials.

I’m also putting together plans for our point-of-sale system, we’re researching the costs to have a killer sign made, and we need to nail down the store layout and start getting some shelving and other casework put in.

There’s a lot to do if we are going to be ready for our opening in August!

empty floor plan

jim winstead — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:04:27 +0000

This is the empty floor plan of our space (click on it to enlarge). I’m no architect, so the measurements and layout are a bit rough, but this should be enough for planning purposes. The whole space is approximately 2400ft².

The current plan is to construct a wall in the back of the space, extending the wall of the bathroom (in the lower right) all the way across. This will create a 200ft² office/storage space.

There is a drop ceiling throughout the entire space, giving a ceiling height of about nine feet. The two grayed-out areas on the left are raised platforms behind windows. The area in the top-middle to the left of the pillar has a lower ceiling (about seven feet) because it is under a stairway.