Lights!!!

The lights for the high ceiling area FINALLY arrived today and the electrical contractor went right to work installing them. All 48 should be installed and powered by the end of the week. The low ceiling lights should arrive Monday 2/9 (fingers crossed).

The electrical contractor also powered up the exterior sign and told us it looks very good.

Race came to visit the store today and helped measure chain for the lights. He also modeled the uniform apron samples.

Logo Creation

Buy fonts from Adobe that Ace requires we use as part of the logo - $50

Buy new Adobe font from ITCFonts because Adobe font from Adobe doesn't work - $25

Credit from Adobe for the Adobe font that doesn't work - $25

Graphic artist to prepare logo for use - $40

Graphic artist to prepare logo for use on the web so that it works correctly (Harry was concerned that you wouldn't know that the above logo is not correct) - $0

Completed logo (check it off the list) - PRICELESS!

Sign Installed

The exterior signs were installed today. The big Ace Hardware looks cool. When it lights up at night, "Hardware" will light up white. The small blade sign is exactly that - SMALL! The silly city sign codes would only allow a 2' x 2' sign which looks like a postage stamp. I think we had a junior planner who would only follow the exact rules of the code instead of using some common sense and leniency. We see lots of other blade signs around downtown that are larger. Oh well - it is what it is.

The large graphics that we ordered for the walls arrived today and should be installed later this week.

We had an inspector come to the store yesterday to tell us that we need some additional railings for our stairs and ramp. That's $1800 we didn't have budgeted. The architect says the code doesn't require it and the contractor is going to talk to the inspector. But, apparently it doesn't really matter what the code is, inspectors have the leeway to require more than code at their whim.

Still no light fixtures. :-(

Let There Be Light

We received word today that the manufacturer was able to crank out 56 of the 60 low-ceiling light fixtures we ordered and they were shipped to us for arrival at the end of next week. We will just make it under the wire (no pun intended). Who knows when the other four will arrive, but somehow we will manage.

Bathroom hardware was installed today, as well as handles on the doors. The vinyl cove is being installed in all of the various rooms - bath, office, service, etc. Patio pavers are about half way finished.

Pam ordered our Talkswitch phone system - actually she won it on eBay.

Next week the electrical contractor will begin installing the high-ceiling lights which will arrive Monday. Also the CCTV security camera system and sound system should start installation towards the end of next week.





We finally made a decision on the automated paint tinter machines today. We have been looking at two different manufacturers - Fluid Management and CPS Corob. All along we've (really just me) wanted the FM machines, but Corob had better pricing. Every time FM came up with a better deal, Corob threw in something else to bring their package price down. Today we worked a deal with FM to buy the machines that they will have in their booth at the Ace Convention in Vegas in March. By selling us those machines, they are able to bring our total cost in line with what Corob was offering.

Most Ace stores use only one, if any, automated tinters. Dinosaurs! We think it is important to be fully automated to show we are serious about the paint biz. One more major purchase ticked off the list ($20,000!)

We Have Power!

We've been energized! Electrical receptacles work - we plugged in a temporary light to check it out and IF we had light fixtures, we'd be able to turn them on. All of the battery operated emergency lights work, so if we want to, we can shut off the power and all the "bug-eye" lights will come on. We might be installing fixtures and shelving by the light of the bug-eye.

Finish work is happening quick. The utility sink and the drinking fountain were installed today. All of the interior doors were painted and door trim installed. The railings for the ramp and stairs were painted. Follow-up to the fire inspection done earlier in the week, extinguishers and exit lights have been installed.

Bathroom hardware (handrails, toilet paper and paper towel holders, etc.) and door handles should be coming any day now. They started work on the patio paver system and we should see progress there by the end of the week.

The HVAC contractor tested the system today. We don't know what the results were, but there must be some issue as one of the ceiling units has an access panel removed and two of the thermostats have been removed from the wall. Whatever - just so it works when we open.

In the Home Stretch for Construction

We are now in the final week of the construction project schedule. Except for those darn lights that we took forever to pick, we should be very close to finished by the end of this week.

Last week the floor preparation contractor worked all week diamond grinding and polishing the concrete floor. Below are in progress and after pictures. To no fault of the contractor, this is the first part of the final product that we are unhappy with. Turns out the concrete floor has endless amounts of cracks that radiate out from the pillars. They were filled and hidden by a year of construction dust, but became very visible once the floor contractor did their magic. Apparently the concrete contractor that was used for the original construction was subpar. So, now we're hoping that the store fixtures will cover up lots of their poor workmanship.

Today was the day for the main switchgear which was installed in the basement of the building last week to be hooked up to the main power feed from SDGE. This will provide the electricity to our store and was a very large project that required what seemed like endless involvement by SDGE (they have lots of hoops for jumping through). Fortunately our electrical contractor rocks and handled most everything.

This morning all of the power to the building, including the 100 residents, had to be shut off by SDGE to make the connection possible. I'm sure there are a few people unhappy with us today, but it's not really our fault as it is something the landlord should have installed during the original construction. Must have been handled by the concrete contractor.

Lots of other activity today, including return of the plumbing contractor to install the bath fixtures. The paving system for the outdoor Patio Living department arrived and installation will begin tomorrow (see picture below - it's an interesting erector set). HVAC contractor completed their install today, and will return later this week to fire up the system and do the air balancing. Most of the electrical work inside the store is now completed, except for hanging those darn light fixtures. The breaker panels are now installed in our service room. Yesterday the fire inspector came and gave us our final sign-off.

Tomorrow is our final day of the mentor program - it was a very informative program, but took a lot of time away from other priorities each work day. We've got stuff to do - it will be nice to start accomplishing some things again instead of having files, catalogs, emails piling up.

Looks like we will be in good shape for the store fixture installation to begin on Feb 16...if our darn light fixtures ever arrive.

Racing or Hardware? That Is the Question

Depends who you ask. If you ask Harry - it's racing. He left yesterday to go to Daytona for the 24 hour race this weekend. Since the car still has a Las Vegas BikeFest logo on it he can claim it is a business trip. You have to look really hard for it on the end panel of the wing. It's a little like playing "where's Waldo".

In the meantime, if you ask me - it's store operations. Not much going on at the store because they are working on polishing the floor so no one else can work. It's very, very close to completion; if we can open the store without lights. Not much news on that front. Still no idea when our lights will be here.

Our first Ebay purchase for the store arrived today. We saved 50% on our wholesale price from Motorola on 12 "like new" radios and two charger banks. You never know what "like new" is really going to mean but I was pleasantly surprised. Several of them still had the little plastic protector on the screen and most of them look like they've never been used. Maybe they were cheap because they seem to have been put in the washer and shrunk. I put my stapler next to one so you can see the size. It's definitely the perfect radio for munchkin land. I'm going to love using them.

Harry has mentioned the Mentor Program in previous blogs. We are almost finished. It's been a good experience and we've received some great insight. One owner in particular, the Griffin family, has provided us so many copies of procedures and checklists (even gave us a CD of them) that we swear they must be long lost cousins of ours. It's a father and his three daughters running the company which is 3 stores. I asked one of them last week if her last name was really Schwartz. Great stuff but now we'll be busy with checklists, job descriptions and Standard Operating Procedures.

The crazy sagas for this week:

1. Do you have Helvetica Bold Oblique and Helvetica Oblique on your computers? I bet not! I haven't seen Helvetica since I typed on a manual typewriter. Well, that's the approved font from Ace to be used along side of the Ace logo. So we need the font for the word "Downtown". After spending $50 to buy the two fonts and trying to convince my computer that it's not in a time warp and it really should let me use them we discovered that when you use all CAPS in Helvetica Bold Oblique, you lose your W's. Now trust me, I'm all for losing "W", but these W's we need so now we've had to change our logo to lowercase. Luckily we haven't printed anything yet.

2. For almost a month now our electrical contractor has been going in circles with SDG&E, US Postmaster and our landlord trying to confirm our address. We need to apply for our meter and no one could agree on whether we were 655 6th Avenue #1 or 655 6th Avenue #901 or 655 6th Avenue #A. This finally got resolved this week. We are 675 6th Avenue. How do you like that. I wonder if we can re-negotiate our lease for reduced rent since the lease is no longer for the correct space. Luckily we haven't printed anything yet.

3. I spent an hour on the phone yesterday with AT&T to order our phone lines. We got a great number reserved (thanks Blair) early in the morning. Called in the afternoon to reserve the lines and somehow she lost our number during the transaction. I would say "Luckily we haven't printed anything yet" but she put in a request for the number when she put through the order last night and I received confirmation that we got it so all is good there.

4. Started working on our Grand Opening plans this week. Scheduled for May 1-3 so put it in your calendars. More details to come on the planning for this. Ace Corporate staff recommends we hire an Event Planner to handle this for us. Know of anyone?

Phew....I need to get back to ordering product.

Thanks for checking back with us.