It's OPEN!!!

Well it took a while but it’s finally happened. We opened our store! I’ve been trying to remember to take the camera with me when I go and though I haven’t always, I do have some pictures. We are still not finished stocking the shelves but we’ve come a long way.

My husband and I signed the lease for the location in August. We only had access to the store on September 1st so there was no way we could actually open for the beginning of that month. Previously the store had been a fitness/massotherapy centre so it didn’t already have bookshelves – we would have to build them from scratch.

We also had to get the internet configured, our telephone lines connected, the hydro turned on, a debit card terminal hooked-up, and a bathroom installed. Then, we prepped and painted the walls, built shelves in the basement for storage, moved furniture in, built the bookcases and of course the boxes and boxes and boxes of books had to be unpacked, checked, cleaned, priced and shelved. Countless hours and a few splinters later we opened the doors. It’s not our grand opening yet – we still have plenty of work ahead of us – but we’re well on the way. So, without further ado, here are the photos…

Here we've prepped and painted the walls. The book shelves still have to go up. The view is looking from the front door towards the back where there is a small office and stairs leading to the basement.



Here come the bookshelves!





On the other wall:



Ok, here's Freeway helping to load book boxes.



Here we're working on getting the books onto the finished shelves. We don't yet have shelves built for the middle of the store so we're temporarily using tables to display more books.



Looking towards the front door.



I admit genres are confusing me! I think I have more genre sections than Chapters! The books have been shelved by genre and then alphabetically by author's last name. I left plenty of space between books so I wouldn't have to shift entire rows when I came upon popular 'letters' for names. Lots of authors names begin with the letter B! Or maybe I just have too many copies of the Da Vinci Code.



It's getting there!


So that's it. We still have a lot of work to do but so far feedback from customers has been enthusiastic, I'm happy to say.


I will do an update when the middle shelves are done and we have a proper window display. So far I'm very pleased with our cozy new store!