Making Decisions...Sort of

Yesterday Pam and I drove to Taft, CA (near Bakersfield) to visit our friend and former employee Eric Cooper. Eric's family owns the True Value hardware store in Taft and he was the first person we called when we decided to jump into the hardware business. After he said "go for it", we knew there was no looking back. Eric helped his father move from a 5500 sq ft store to a 20,000 sq ft store and now runs a very successful home center and adjacent upscale nursery. We went up there for advice from he and his brother Jeff. Came home with a whole notebook of ideas. Thanks Eric!

This morning Sissi Engle, a close friend of Pam & Sunny's who works for Home Depot (sshhh!) came down to the store to help us pick out paint colors for our walls. Until recent changes in Depot's strategies, Sissi was an in-home decorating consultant. In other words, she helped idiots make sure their house didn't get painted pink, turquoise and chartreuse. Now she helps other idiots remodel their kitchens, but you have to go into the store for that. Here's Pam holding up the final selection from the color samples. These are in-line with Ace's new progressive contemporary colors for stores. No more white or white for choices from HQ. Sorry about the blurry close-up.

Still no decision on light fixtures, but we did select the store fixture manufacturer - Madix. So there is one item checked off the list and another $50,000 check written. We plan to begin the fixture installation on February 16. That's our first hard date - hopefully we'll make it. Pam's still shopping - today was small appliances, kitchen drawer organizers, pendant lights, fans and heaters. When will it end?

The HVAC contractor laid out the duct system (chalked on the ground) and we reviewed / approved that today. The first HVAC unit was delivered today and within a few days we should have ducts in the ceiling.

Plumbing for the bathrooms is installed and electricians will start working on wiring receptacles this week. We decided to go with the Talkswitch phone system (thanks for the tip Scott G - want to sell us your old system?)

Still working on exterior signs and now interviewing contractors to do network / phone cabling. Soon will be surveillance cameras and music systems.