March is winding down and the store is still in the prep-stage. There remains a remote possibility that the grand re-opening will make an April 1 deadline, but it may take just a while longer to move all those boxes of books and get them resettled.
In the meantime, the work carries on assembling the shelves from the old store. More than 25 bookcases were pushed, pulled, dragged, and carried by my wife and me, from one of the storage units to the store on Sunday and were organized on Monday morning. The picture shows the line of cases from the front to the back of the store interior.
Monday afternoon – after bringing the shelves and supports from storage – the wall units were assembled along the south wall. They came apart a lot easier than they went back together. (I had taken the trouble to mark each shelf and matching support, but upon reassembly decided they were all constructed to match and disregarded my identifying marks. They don’t all match. Therein lies the difficulty.
At last, the wall is full of shelves from the bistro-tables-area in the front of the store leading to the back of the sales area. By Wednesday, the north wall shelving should be completed as well. There are a couple of interim projects between now and then.
The outside of the store is looking good and will look better once there is time enough to get the windows washed and cleaned. A little shelf on the front window bench will do nicely to display some new titles. (I’ve placed The Hunger Games in trade paper and a special boxed-edition copy on display, along with a boxed set of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, which I have not read, but have enjoyed on television.)
Once the shelves and cases were removed from the storage unit, I was able to see the boxes of books that were hidden behind. It’s a bit misleading to say they were hidden though – sort of like saying a tsunami snuck in. There are almost exactly a thousand boxes waiting to be unpacked, and when the last couple of bookcases were moved out of the way, stacks and stacks and stacks of boxes were revealed.
An imposing sight, to say the least.
It is exciting though, the idea of getting those books on the shelves and ready to go.
Still anxiously waiting for the re-opening! Doing lots of re-reads and really enjoying that, but we still can hardly wait! Out of 9 in a series, I am only missing #2, and dammit, that was next for James Patterson. Hopefully you will have that one, specifically. Be seeing you soon!
Ms G! I’ve run across several Patterson boxes that are mostly unpacked now…hope the one you need is among them!