Two week anniversary

Apologies for not blogging regularly - our internet connection at home has not been working for the last month and I have to blog in the shop which is not always an ideal situtation.

So much has happened, we have been told that we are very brave to open a shop in the recession (just makes us worry more), have been advised what to do and what to sell, most of the advice has been useful and positive. We are now on the look out for a good venue for the classes so that we can inform everyone within the next couple of weeks, we will also put together a list of workshops at the same time.

We have survived the last two weeks which have whizzed past, we have even sold out of a bolt of fabric and had to re-order (we do get excited by the smallest thing at the moment).

Wellington held a food fair on our first Saturday which was different and we both managed to get out of the shop to have a quick look around.  Joan's son and his wife came down from London at the end of the week and paid a visit.  Neil (Joan's son) gave us lots of advice and his wife, Claire, really wanted to use the till -  we should have insisted that Neil buy her something so that she could put it through.

On Tuesday the Tour of Britain bike race went through the town and on my way to get my soya latte from the Chocolate Box I noticed a group of older ladies were in position well before the bikes were due (must be the thought of the lycra) .  The cyclists were late due to the bad weather, everyone stood around waiting for what seemed like an hour, when the riders arrived it took seconds for them all to pass by, it would have been more interesting if one of the ladies had run after them but nothing like that happened unfortunately, maybe I should have done it!!!!

Now I am on my own for two weeks which will be very strange, so if you come in and hear me talking away to myself please don't be alarmed.  So it will definitely be lovely to see you and if you bring a soya latte you could be my friend forever!

nearly one week old

Well we have nearly completed one week of trading and are still amazed at all the nice comments that people make.  We even had a visit from the Deputy Mayor and a member of the Town Council who came in and welcomed us - this would be unlikely to happen in Taunton. 

Our list for people interested in classes has now filled three pages, all we need to do now is to find a hall and we can get on and organise groups although we are still getting used to owning a shop.  We have loads of ideas but need to focus on just a few things at once!

We had a royal visit from Shirley today (for more info check out her blog sticherydo) who cut the ribbon to officially open the shop. A few weeks ago we were on a trip to Cowslip in Launceston with the Apple County Quilting group and she mentioned about cutting a ribbon so we bought one, ready for her arrival. Unfortunately I had no previous warning or I would have dressed up instead of wearing my old cardigan which is not very flattering plus I thought that I had moved out of the way and would not be in the picture which was stupid as the shop is not that wide - need to get back on that diet. Joan will be upset as she wasn't even in the shop at the time.

The best thing about being here is meeting all the people - we have met so many lovely ladies (and a few men) who have given their advice and ideas, one we will be putting in place quickly is the box of toys for children to play with.  This idea came from a customer who had to chase after her little girl who left the shop when she realised that there was nothing of interest for her - a three year old who knows what she wants.

Also had a visit from a lady from County Quilters in Taunton who said she had been sent over to find out about us - luckily I was on my best behaviour!!!

First Day

We have completed our first day of trading which has been scary, exciting, wonderful and by 4.30pm exhausting.  We have been covered in paint for so long that it has been lovely to wear normal clothes, make up and jewellery. 

At 7.30 this morning we were on our way to Wellington worrying about how the day would go, if we would be able to use the till (similar to Arkwrights) which refuses to open when we press the button and whose instructions are gobbledigook and if we would be capable of using the credit card machine.  Thankfully it was much better than we expected and it was lovely to meet people we haven't seen for a while and new people who we hope to see again. 

Marina was our first customer and our first follower on our blog, she made some lovely comments about the shop and even bought something!!!!  Throughout the day people have been coming in (mostly female) saying how pleased they are to see a fabric shop in the town and what a good job we had done, we had three bouquets of flowers from our landlords, Joan's children and her sister (note nothing from my family) which were unexpected and a lovely surprise.  Ann Mclaren made some lemon drizzle cake which everyone raved about and Joseph (little boy from next door) came in regularly to check we were okay and to pick up one of Joan's cup cakes.

Tomorrow will be better because we now know how to use the machinery - if you are in the area come and see us

Button & Ribbon table with gorgeous "Where's my Shirt"
quilt made by Joan and Rosalind

Joan trying to work out how to use the till

Plenty of space for more fabrics!!!

4 days to go

We have painted everything that moves, and stands still, the whole shop was bright white until today. When we left last night there were bare floorboards, this morning it has been transformed by carpet and we can walk around without shoes on. What we didn't realise is that the furniture would still be slightly wet so the poor carpet fitters were covered in paint, we thought everything was a bit tacky and as long as they didn't touch anything too roughly they would be okay but Martin discovered the wet bits underneath the units. Oops! 

 There is one part of the shop we are not too happy with and thats the piece of wall that covers some pipes which we have christenend the scabby post - the paint keeps flaking and we are so fed up of painting that we are going to make a feature of it (or cover it with something). 

We are really pleased with ourselves, we have done the large majority of the work on our own.  I have an impressive pair of biceps and Joan is covered in blisters but she is now thinking she might help with the decorating at home which her husband will be delighted to hear.

The final stage is the sign writing, which should be done this weekend, and taking delivery of more stock and putting it on the shelves.  All we have to panic about now is if we have any customers!!!

Exhausted

We are both exhausted - went in on Saturday to finish off all the painting but by lunchtime we realised that this wasn't likely to happen as we had only just finished taping all the plaster board joints.  Luckily Joan's sister and dad turned up, in their painting gear, to help. With their help all the walls and ceiling were given a coat of paint - it now looks gorgeous but there is still loads to do.    I am sure all the passers by found it hilarious to see this grown up woman (me) struggling to get up and down a ladder and holding on for dear life at the dizzy height of 4 steps.  Joan and her dad had matching hats on, she calls it her cricket hat which I did take photos of but my computer won't read the card from my camera.  We finally left about 4 in the afternoon and my legs were just about giving up as we walked to the car.

You can now see a picture of the new shop front which I have taken with another camera

Still decorating

Today we are painting the walls and ceiling - its taken four days of preparation and as long as we don't find lumps of filler on the floor (from holes in the ceiling that we filled on Thursday) we should be able to cover it all in white paint and it will look gorgeous!

If you are walking past today and see two exhausted, old  (not too old) women lying on the floor in the shop please bring coffee (tea for Joan)

Will take a picture of the shop today before I get covered in paint and when there are no vans parked outside

Replacement of shop front

As you can see from the picture the shop front was not particularly attractive, thankfully it has been replaced as the building is listed and aluminium frames did not comply. We now have a lovely wooden front which I will photograph tomorrow so that you can see the difference.



Our job now is to match the inside to the outside which sounds so easy!!! We have had plenty of advice on what to do, and how to do it, from husbands and builders. It didn't seem like it would be too difficult and we definitely don't want to spend our stock money on painters & decorators so have decided to do the work ourselves (something we are already beginning to regret). Our first task was to prepare the plasterboard which (we were advised) meant watering down emulsion so the board could absorb the moisture - no idea why. Within two minutes we were both covered in paint as the rollers just sprayed the emulsion everywhere, over us, the floor but just dripped down the walls.



I thought we would have the whole shop painted in two days but at the end of the second day we still have not filled in all the screw holes in the plasterboard or covered it all with the first coat of paint. Joan has spent most of today trying to pull off carpet which appears to be superglued onto board, her hands were covered in plasters by lunchtime. We then had a visit from the lovely Martin (Chilcott Carpets) who advised us to take up the board as well so all Joan's effort was wasted, but it was good exercise.



After all the work we put in yesterday one of the builders who is making a shop counter for us said to Joan that he hoped we were going to go over all the joins with filler (which I would like to say that I had done but obviously not to a professionals standard)so tomorrow we will be back re-filling and spraying paint everywhere.