I know, what the hell happened over here. It's been like radio silence as of late. I haven't even had a chance to post about our winter upstairs hallway. Maybe tomorrow, hopefully before spring right?
So, now for the reason for this crazy bit of silence.
It is ABSOLUTELY OFFICIAL
OLIVER AND RUST IS BECOMING A LOCAL STORE!!!!!
After slugging away and working at this for the last 3 plus years we are at the point of no return. We took possession of our space a week ago and have started the process of renovating.
We will be located in Fonthill, Ontario on Highway 20. Exact location is being kept hush hush until we get a little further and have a exact grand opening date for you.
The cool part for all of you followers that have been on this ride with us from the beginning is I am going to share the whole process from start to finish.
Don't worry this blog is still going to based on our home and the changes we make but we will also be adding in the changes and seasonal fun of the store.
So with this information how about the before pictures of the space we are working with.
I love a good before and after and right now we are in the before and 24 hours into ownership photo sharing stage.
The previous tenants from a few years ago were a fan of mismatched colours. The walls are dusty rose, the window trim is sky blue and the carpet was black and white. Odd.
it's a big blank slate for pretty well anything we want. of course the ideas are all set and now we are just implementing them at this point. these photos were taken on our initial walk through. the heat was off and had been off for 2 years. our realtor and trevor were talking and shuffling to keep warm at this point.
the bathroom has wheelchair accessibility going for it but not much else on the personality factor. that has started to be rectified and i can't wait to share with you.
After the contemplation phase comes the action phase.
So now that you have seen the "BEFORE" photos lets move onto the first weekend status updates.
Our first "to tackle" project was the floor. We ripped the carpet out in 30 minutes to reveal a perfect concrete floor underneath....
covered in yellow carpet adhesive.
I should have known that the carpet coming out so quickly meant that something was going to go wrong.
Off to Lowes we went to rent ourselves a floor sander.
Lowes doesn't rent floor sanders, or any tools for that matter, oops.
Wander around and buy some of the things that we needed.
Drive to Home Depot and try to rent floor sander.
Sander in stock but not the mastic remover attachment.
Drive to next Home Depot and successfully rent sander, and the attachment. Listen to the two "kids" working in the store try to explain the use of said sander and realize they really aren't quite sure how to use it themselves.
Drive back to the store and read instructions.
The sander we rented required water. We were prepared with watering can, shop vac.
We weren't prepared for the 4 inch clearance faucet that could not fill any kind of bucket or watering can with water.
We used the bottom of a toilet bowl brush holder to continuously add water over and over again.
NOTE: stress level climbing at this point.
Trevor started the sander and slammed right into the wall.
He looked at me with the what the hell did we get ourselves into face, and tried again and slammed into the wall.
You know those cartoons where the cat or skunk starts the floor sander and ends up spinning in circles and flies off into the wall.
THEY ARE EXACTLY RIGHT!
So once we kinda got started, we realized that the sanding was making A LOT of water and mud that was getting everywhere and.....
oh shit we forgot the mops.
Off to Walmart in a fit of screaming. Both of us not just me.
We went to Walmart covered in concrete with red faces and barely speaking to one another because we were so panicked about the evil sander waiting to kill us back at the store.
We made it through 1/4 of the store that night and only had the sander for 1 more day.
We were exhausted and frustrated.
We did more research that night and decided to scrap the keeping plain concrete floors as getting all of the yellow glue off wasn't working. We didn't want to pay anyone to polish them and settled on a lovely industrial grade painted floor.
We went back the next morning with fresh perspective and got into a fantastic rhythm and with the wonderful help of my mother in law we got the whole floor done.
No one got murdered by the sander or by a person.
We didn't flood our basement.
We blew a breaker but no big mishaps.
Trevor had gotten to the level of awesome by this point and was sanding like a pro. At least to me as I couldn't have held onto that thing. We also uninstalled the faucet so we could move it higher and be a smidgen quicker with water.
End of first weekend progress. 6 wash downs laters, a clean concrete floor and replaced mental sanity.
I know these photos aren't all that pretty but it's the anticipation that counts right? You just wait, it's going to be awesome. It's awesome in my head and with only minor bumps I am bringing the awesome to you.
At least thats what I'm telling myself.
Have a great weekend all, I'll be getting my paint on.
Meg
