Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Work Work Work

For those who don't know many, which is many, I own two businesses: an aromatherapy company and an online artisan supply company which sells yarns, fibers, jewelry making supplies, etc. Well I made the insane decision to combine the two companies and open up half of my warehouse as my store for customers to come and shop, and it is a tremendous amount of work.

The whole theme of the store is old world artisan, so therefore since I couldn't find unique shelving to display that them, I decided to build my own. I may be insane, and covered in splinters, however, I am really pleased with the outcome. I used 3/4" sheets of plywood that the guys at Home Depot cut for me, and went to work with my air nailers, Dewalt drill & self tapping screws. The design I went with is the traditional cube display, but instead of paying $300 per unit at Ikea, and risking it fall apart like other things I have purchased at Ikea, I paid $120 for enough materials to make 3 units. I also put my units on wheels so that they can be easily moved around for mopping the floors and incase something falls in back.

I topped each off with a dark walnut stain, and an amber shellac which gave to color a lot of warmth.I painted the walls a nice jute color, and added molding around the ceiling to give the room some old world character.

Since half of the inventory I manufacture & the other half I purchase for resale I am currently half stocked. My webhosting company of 12 years has officially gone out of business, so I am also having to rebuild all of my websites as well. Therefore my days and nights have been filled with nothing but work.