We have had a frantic weekend packing up and moving products, shelving, racking....and taking it a few yards down the road on the other side to the new shop.
I must say a HUGE thank you to my lovely friends who helped to make all this possible. Inga and her daughter Dayana who came along and packed up lots of the old shop and Lorraine who spent FOUR hours cleaning the floor of the new shop as well as putting stuff back on hooks, especially the high ones!! Lorraine's son George who did the painting, cleaned windows - boy were they dirty! and generally did anything asked of him and last but certainly not least hubby Colin who masterminded it all and spent hours there painting, putting up racking and putting together bookcases from Ikea...I had a two hour drive each way to Ikea yesterday when we realised we weren't going to be able to buy them locally as we had thought.
We had some thrills and spills along the way - mainly spills involving paint I may add. I had decided on charcoal grey paint for the outside and Colin goes off to buy it and comes back with battleship grey - yuk! looked awful so I put the tin in my car and drove home ok but on the way to the paint shop the next morning going round a roundabout the tin tipped over spilling grey paint over the carpeted floor of my car. Oh boy what a sticky mess! think thick grey custard. Colin cleans my car out and then buys colouriser and painstakingly mixes it till we agree its charcoal. OK so far.
Colin is then painting the shop front and Lorraine and I both hear a noise and look up to find him on the pavement entangled in the ladder platform. As he is 6foot 3 he looked like Bambi - all legs and arms. We rushed outside thinking he had fallen off and would be hurt but no he had leant against it and it collapsed trapping him in - he was more cross that the paint which he had lovingly mixed to get just the right shade of charcoal grey was spilled all over the pavement.
Anyway, ready or not - NOT!!! we opened and had a lovely (and profitable) morning. Friends old and new popped in with good wishes and we laughed as we couldn't find things we knew were there...but they'll turn up soon - maybe!!!...
No photos of the studio area yet as it looks like a bomb site. There is stuff everywhere still - products to be put out and equipment for the classes and workshops for when we get storage, ladders, tools, cardboard boxes both empty and full... you get the picture.
I will try to post more pictures later in the week when hopefully we will be more organised -
So that's where we are at so far.
Bye for now
Sue
