Sunday, July 15, 2012

Long hours finally paying off

I find myself wondering where this past week went.  Between teaching, working and working on the shop I've been so busy I don't know where the days are going.  Here's an update on what's been going on since we were blessed with power.

We worked on the floor most of the week.  It was pretty time consuming - each board was easy and all, it's just there's a lot of floor to cover.  We moved everything to one side of the shop and started putting the floor down on the other.  Then when we got close to the pile of stuff, I got to move it to the finished part of the shop.  All in all it was lots of moving - moving stuff, moving heavy boxes of flooring and shuffling this and that.  It was also my job to put the vapor barrier and padding down, and keep floor tiles accessible so Austin could lay the floor as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Needless to say my back has been sore for several days now, and it's particularly stiff today.   

Good news though!  We had extra flooring to return to Lowes!
This much extra + extra padding = getting $650 or so back!  I was super excited about that!! 

Between teaching classes and working on the shop I had a couple hours to work on sewing work each day.  I set aside some time to make a backpack for my Jamie.  It's better than mine, as mine was the first - with Jamie's I changed a few things for the better and it's the new and improved model. 
This will go out in the mail tomorrow!  Let's hope it's a good size for her and she likes it!!  

Thursday night it was the moment we had been waiting for.  Yes, it's true - the very last planks were put on the floor!  YIPPE!!!  


See this guy?  That's my husband.  He's pretty awesome.  He put the whole floor down for me.  He also did it all  in a few hours each night after working at his job all day.  He's super exhausted and yet he keeps helping me get set up.  He doesn't even complain - he just comes and works and is so awesome about it.  Yup, he's a keeper. 

Friday we started moving into the shop.  We also made a trip to Gershel Brothers in Phoenix - it's the store fixture store.  It's pretty awesome.  I know, I get excited about the weirdest stuff.  

Here's Aaron and Rachel looking at the pile of stuff we bought.


Here it is loaded into the car.

And in the shop.  I knew I had to put it together, but I was kinda worried about that part so I didn't build it Friday night.  

Saturday morning I was lucky to have a small moving crew of friends and family to help load up some things from storage and bring them to the shop.  

The littles were told to not play on the shelves, but every time I looked over there they were on them.  The shelves were bunk beds, a stage, apartments for their teddy bears... a jungle gym - (which I very sternly and quickly nipped in the bud.)   

And I decided it was time to build the shelves...  I was nervous, but really they were pretty easy to put together.  The directions recommended 2 people put them together but I did it myself and was just fine. 

Above is the first one on both sides.  There's shelves that go on the employee side to keep paperwork and such.  The slatwall side we will use to display small impulse buying things - you know, the crap by the registers everywhere you go?  Yah, the stuff all the kids beg for?  Um hum.  That's it.  


While I was building shelves, Rachel went about dressing the mannequins and setting up a display.  She didn't have much to work with as mostly what's been brought to storage is the odd ball stuff.  But she did great!  And had lots of fun too.  

And then we got a huge and powerful monsoon rain storm.  And I was very glad we were in the shop at the time because the roof leaked!  YIKES!!!  Total paranoia because as you see above, we had just put down the floor.  Thank heavens for an awesome landlord who got right on it and has someone coming out to fix the roof.  Also thankful for having extra rags and buckets at the shop.  :)

Here's the second cabinet I put together.  This one was much more intimidating because of the glass - but it was pretty easy and straight forward to put together and not a big deal at all.  Once this was set up the kids put on some random costumes (cowboy hats and boots and aprons and stuff) and made up a store.  They played store for awhile and put things to sell in the glass case.  Funny, they were selling my hair bandanna, our hammer, our screw drivers, our tape... mostly the stuff we needed to keep working...  silly kids. 


While all of this was going on Bryce, the construction guy came to hang my grid wall.  It's almost done - should be ready to go on Monday.  YAY!!!  I'm sure he's convinced we're 100% nuts after spending the whole day listening to the littles and I in the shop. .. maybe he's right.

After being at the shop since 9:30 that morning I was ready for a much needed dinner break away.  We drove down the street to Dennys for dinner, where Austin met us after his work day. Austin and Rachel found some "no" onion rings in the pile.   So silly.  I love how we find funny things wherever we go and whatever we do. 

After dinner we headed back to the shop for some base board installation.  Austin made it almost around the whole shop and then we ran out of adhesive.  It was late, so we called it a night.  The littles were still energetic and wanting to stay but it was 11pm and time to head for home and get some much needed sleep.  I hope we are able to finish moving in this week and get the shop open!  Tomorrow we will schedule phone and Internet installation.  And get the roof and plumbing fixed.  YAHHOO! 




















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