The fruits of our labor

Well someone(s) worked WAY harder than we did this weekend.  Davis and Wendy Varner, our photographic artists, worked from sun up till way past sun down to paint, hang and organize the gallery (as well as hanging art in the boutique and the Redfish).  Without any more blabbing, here is the story in pictures.  (oh and weekend 1 of our open boutique was a great success!  Lots of traffic, a few sales, some nice introductions and no cash register or credit card catastrophes!)

The Redfish Cottage

The Boutique and Gallery

Our Storefront



1st of THREE moves - check!

Friday we rented a U-haul trailer to take down the furnishings for the Key West Cottage.  Ikea delivered the bed, mattress, and sleeper sofa (and 2 bookcases for the boutique) to our house, and we loaded them onto the trailer along with the buffet, dining room table and chairs, desk and chair, end tables, coffee table, 4 arm chairs, and a few misc boxes and linens.  It was a long day as we did all of the loading/unloading just the two of us.  BUT it was SO FUN to sleep there Friday night in the partially furnished cottage!  We slept on the mattress on the floor since the Ikea bed is still in boxes.  That will be phase 2 this weekend, where we supply lots of beer and wine to our friends in exchange for furniture assembly and painting.

Here are a few pics of the cottage.  We will add the couch, bed, and some decorations this coming weekend.  We will also paint the walls a light gray-white.  And take much better pics.  And steam the wrinkled chair covers.  And add a layer of polyacrylic to the dining room table top.  And probably do 2 dozen other things.

I.  LOVE.  IT.

Moving right along

We spent this past weekend in Matlacha - another meeting with the bank to talk about financing and to open a business account, and another meeting at our accountants to get some training on using Quickbooks.  Tiki was welcome at both meetings.  I may start taking this dog friendly stuff for granted - god forbid I wind up in the ER or something, I'll be all "and why CAN'T my dog be here?  what kind of place IS this????"

We stayed at the Bridgewater (not view) Inn, which was nice and close for all the back and forth we did with the new property.  We took our photographer friends, Wendy and Davis, around to show them the property, meet the owners, see Pine Island, etc.  They loved it and we're all super excited for them to display and sell their photos.  Rich and Lesa joined us as well for Saturday day/night.

The owners had a bunch of furniture they wanted to leave if we could use it.  They also have decades worth of tools bought specifically for the property.  Between the two lots, we should have everything we'll ever need.  Included in the furniture lot is a ton of restaurant stuff.  Will make it easier to jump into that when we're ready.

Also took some detailed measurements so that I can start figuring out the store floorplan and what racks and displays we'll need to buy and arrange.  One of the detailed measurements was of the master bedroom in the owners cottage to see if our king sized bed will fit.....it will leave about 18 inches on each side of the room.
I think we're desperate enough for our large bed that we'll live w/ the tight space!

I made a list of all of the furniture things I need to finish and it's painfully overwhelming.  I thought I got such a head start on it, but once the frigging garage filled up, I couldn't really do anything (using spray paint anyway), so it came to a standstill.  I was planning to continue to procrastinate last night but felt the need to get something, anything, done....so I sprayed and covered the seat on this chair (it was already primed).  Baby steps :)  This pic is before I put the final coat of turquoise on. 

as a reminder; here is the before picture:

Also of note; the buyer for our home came by last night to learn all the details of the pool/dock/house maintenance.  He even brought me a bottle of wine!  These buyers couldn't be nicer and more excited about our home.  I am so thrilled.  Today is the inspection so pending that; we're golden!  Still looking at an August 15th closing date.