McHuston Booksellers

Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: book stores (Page 113 of 113)

Getting to the point. Eventually.

March 26, 2012 / / 2 Comments

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.

Awnings and Yawnings.

March 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The cloudy-rainy weather makes me wish for an all-day layabout in bed, preferably with a good book! But the hiatus is over and the days of lounging around while waiting for the building to be completed are gone.

I missed the awning! And I’m happy to report that it has been restored to the front of the building. It comes a little late, rain-wise, but that’s all right.

As you can see in the photo, the former law firm’s identity has been removed from the front of the canvas. Of course, if you have a hankering to see that, you can travel back in time by way of Google Earth, which has not updated its images of downtown Broken Arrow since the Main Street Tavern moved in, and the Glamour Gowns and More building was remodeled.

The new McHuston Booksellers building is pretty much completed now, with only a few minor behind the scenes things. Weather-stripping the back door, for example.

Tables and chairs are scheduled for delivery today, even though they’ll have to be pushed to the side again to allow the moving of the remainder of the book shelves and cases. Bit by bit it is coming together.

I’ve already given a couple of pre-opening tours to the curious, and I wish I could do it for everyone. There is nothing like word-of-mouth advertising, and the more folks who see the wonderful renovation of this century-old building’s interior, the quicker the word will spread that the store is reopening!

The new question is – When will that come?

I’ve been telling people that it will take some time (and cooperative weather) to get the one-thousand boxes of books moved back onto the shelves. And that’s after getting the last of the shelves installed.

The checkout counter won’t take long to set up, and the sales systems are already in place and ready to go.

April 1st would be a good target date. Whether it is realistic or not is the next question. In the meantime, blogging-break is over and it is time for back to work!

Ishmael? No. Call me Manuel. Manuel Labor.

March 19, 2012 / / 0 Comments

It is a bit dreary outside with the first real springtime storm dropping rain as though it will all come at once instead of spacing itself out over the season. Inside, it is snug and comfortable.

No need to set buckets in the back to catch water. The old location – with its leaks and exposed fluorescent bulbs and stained ceiling tiles – is history.

Earlier, I closed my eyes after setting the drill in place and ran the bit through the new wallboard. Hated to do it, but it won’t show and the wall shelves must be anchored for safety. Half are completed and I’m taking a break to post this update.

I’m exploring old and new technology this afternoon and both went off without a hitch. It’s nice when that happens. Being both supervisor and laborer today, I had to find a way to lift a broken shelf into place to be repaired. You can see from the pictures that I managed it, and the unit is much more solid with the new woodscrews than it was with the thirty-plus year old commercial staples.

Even though the staples gave way from the sliding, wrenching, lifting, and tilting, the wood is solid. Heavy stuff. The section is six feet long, and you can check the construction in the picture (it’s the nearest light wood fixture). I was able to lift it onto the base by stacking a series of steps using extra shelves. I could raise one end, slide the lift underneath, and then move to the other side to repeat the process.

Eventually, I had raised the top to a level where I could slide it over onto the base. Drilling pilot holes and running in the screws was the easy part.

I’m wishing I could clone myself to give myself a hand (not applause, silly – just a little extra lifting power).

Raising something heavy is ancient technology – pyramid stuff.

I’m able to post pictures using something I’ve just discovered. My cell phone is equipped with Bluetooth technology, something I’ve heard bandied about, but never had occasion to investigate. It turns out my laptop has the same capability.

It took a few minutes to figure it out, but I got the telephone to talk to the laptop and transferred the pictures from my phone to the computer. Bam! There they are, without so much as a wire to carry them from one place to another. And I love that fact that it worked on the first go ‘round without a frustrating learning curve.

Now that the images are here and this note is ended, I’m back to the drill and electric driver to run a few more screws into the remaining shelf units. The last wall anchors will complete the installation of the newly acquired shelves.

A break in the rainy weather will allow me to start bringing the books out of storage.

Here we go!

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