Tuesday, December 5th, 2006
It’s only noon and I think I’ve already had more excitement today than I can handle. I’m out all day at an employer’s workshop learning about how to pay my employment taxes correctly and such. Wow, I can’t believe that they let people run businesses without attending this workshop. There are so many things that are being done incorrectly - even when people don’t have employees. Anyway, before I even got to the workshop, I received phone calls from the city (”hello city!” - inside joke…ha ha, Mom) and the builder’s permit was APPROVED! Wow, that must have been a record - 2 days! I was told to prepare for 2 weeks. Looks like our architect, Paul, must have pulled some strings as he works with the inspectors often. Glad we hired him.
Seconds after I hung up the phone with the city, it rang again. This time it was the sign guy (reminds me of that episode of Friends when Monica dates that guy they call, “Paul, the wine guy” - I degress…). He said that the sign is done and they will be coming to hang it Thursday! Wow, I wasn’t thinking it would be done so soon. Why is it that whenever you do something ahead of time it gets done long before you want it to and when you’re strapped for time, it takes MUCH MUCH longer?!
On the design firm end of things, last week I finally started with a client I’ve been working on since June and they’ll need me on-site for 1-2 days per week. This is GREAT news for the business, but unfortunately, I’m having a hard time fitting them in. I hope that as things progress, they’ll find that I can do the work more efficiently from the office and they’ll let me do it from there. I guess I just have to prove myself.
Monday, December 4th, 2006
Don’t you just love the relief you feel after a period of chaos and then you finally get things organized? This weekend was all about clean-up.
As an entrepreneur, one of the things I’ve found to be most valuable in business are the people who are willing to help you out and are excited for your progress. I think it goes against most any entrepreneur’s nature to hand over control of things when your business is your baby. However, I’ve found that training yourself to let go and allow others to help can be one of the best ways to grow and be successful. The true test of my ability to do this will come when my first employee starts later this month.
Well, this weekend, one of my biggest fans came to help…my mom. We started on Friday in the office and organized all my file and cleaned off my desk. Today when I came in, it was nice and organized. It was such a refreshing feeling.
Then, Saturday, we did some shopping for organizational materials and got some fixtures for the store. We cleaned out the bathrooms (wow, were they dirty! Pics to come later) and cleaned up all the paint dust that had covered the entire floor from spraying the ceiling. The store is actually clean enough to work without inhaling a cloud of dust. I can’t say enough how much help it was to have a couple of partners (my dearest supporting husband included) to triple the labor force and get things done quickly.
Of course, this doesn’t lessen my work load for the week. This one’s busier than the last - I’m finding that each week gets worse and worse. But, at least I can work at a clean, organized desk. Now, if only my house had magically cleaned itself!
By the way, Dan and Mom - THANKS A MILLION! I owe you so much!
Monday, November 27th, 2006
Blogging has escaped me for a while. I spent a glorious long weekend in Fargo with hubby, inlaws, and my family. It was a very much needed break from the craziness around here. However, I have to admit that I felt really antsy the whole time I was there because nothing was getting done here.
Today, I was working along and a gentleman from the St. Paul Hotel office down the hall stopped in. He handed me this letter and said it was left under their door. They have no idea who it’s from and they have never worked with me, so there wasn’t anything they could do with it.
What am I supposed to do with this? I’d love to know who it is. It looks as if they have a project for me. However, it’s so vague and weird that I can’t think it would be anything good. Maybe it was the crazy guy from a few weeks ago. Humm…..I’m stumped.
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006
Well, everything was smooth sailing - almost too smooth in fact - until now. It started this weekend when we thought we were going to put up some walls in the store. It was an easy thought, but is turning out to be much more difficult than anticipated.
Caution Flag #1. We went to Home Depot and loaded up a rental truck with 120 2×4s. The employees who couldn’t wait to get off their shift to go out to the bars were laughing at us as they fumbled the lumber into the truck. We drove to the store and in the freezing cold, unloaded the lumber into the store - me looking pretty in my white wool coat. It happened to be my hubby’s birthday that day and being such a sweetheart, he donated his day to me by running around doing errands for the store and buying lumber. Note to self - don’t go to Home Depot and attempt to buy 120 pieces of lumber, 12 boxes of track lighting, 12 boxes of marble tile, and miscellaneous other items while dressed up - not only will you get strange looks when you whip out your work gloves to start loading up lumber, but you’ll also feel really silly at the same time.
Meanwhile…I knew that we had to get a builder’s permit for this work. My memory told me that when I was younger and work was done on our deck back home, that it was an easy thing to get. So, because I didn’t have all of the correct information, I waited until I was handed a key to the store to look into it. WRONG MOVE! When I did finally march into City Hall to apply, I was told that if I was doing any work myself, I needed a contractor’s license, which required workman’s comp and insurance. Ok, no problem….
Orange Cone #2 Instead of putting up walls over the weekend, we painted. We didn’t want to break any laws by not having a building permit, so spray away we did. I had put in a call to an insurance agent and was awaiting quotes for insurance anyway. Well, a few days passed and still no word from the insurance agent. I finally decided to call and see what was up. I got the insurance for the business in general, no problem (at a much lower rate than I exected, may I add). However, my agent “wasn’t comfortable” providing me with a certificate of insurance for contracting work since that would be an entire different policy and his underwriters would ask too many questions. He suggested I ask a contractor friend to contract the job for me. Yeah right.
I happen to know that another business down the road from me did the same DIY craziness in his store. He shall remain nameless for reasons you’ll see in a bit. So, my gang of construction members and I marched into his store and traded secrets. Turns out that he was able to obtain a contractor’s license and corresponding builder’s permit from the city no problem. He even got an insurance certificate from his agent. WOW, he must have magic powers!
Stop Sign #3 Today brings what I hope is the climax to my story; I could only be so lucky that the trouble will end today. After I was told by my insurance agent that I couldn’t get a certificate of insurance for my construction needs (which is rediculous! I’m paying for the insurance, let me give a certificate to someone who wants it). I decided to march into City Hall again to look for answers. I put on my brave “business” pose and confidently walked up to the counter. I was greeted and my story explanation began….”see, my agent won’t give me a certificate, but that’s all you need right?” “UmHumm,” said the man behind the counter. “He HAS to give it to you, call him and yell at him.” “Darn,” I thought. I was hoping that my luck would bring me a “I’ll make an exception and let you use this photocopy of your policy” pass. I would quickly find out that the insurance certificate was no longer going to be a concern because another BIG concern was about to come up.
Road Crew Jumping In Front Of Me Yelling STOP with flashing lights Sign#4 The large man behind the counter, whom I can only guess was an inspector (my bad, his card reads Chief Building Official) notices my drawing of my construction plans and grabs it to start looking at it. He whips out a pen and starts scribbling all over it. “You need to add doors and take out this….put this in, change this……Wait a second, how big is this store?” I started to feel like a cartoon - you know how they start to shrink down real small when they’re getting in trouble staring up at the person yelling at them. “2800 square feet.” I cautiously replied. “I think you’re over the limit.” He walks away. I’m left confused and worried….He comes back with a binder and flashes it in front of my face with the number 2500 staring at me, “Yup, you’re over the limit.” “Limit for what?” I asked. “Size,” he replied. Ok. What does this mean? Well, if a store is over a certain size and one plans to do the work themselves, an architectural drawing is required to obtain a builder’s permit. My heart sank. I pleaded, “All I’m going to do is add a couple of studs and drywall. Why would an architect need to sign off on that?” No mercy from the city man. In fact, he made things worse, “I don’t even know if you can use wood.” Ha ha! I’ve already looked into that. (I THINK). According to the man down the road from me, wood is ok. Now, I question his ability to follow procedure.
So, as I realize this story is getting longer and longer, the moral is that I am not stuck because I can’t build walls without a permit and I can’t get a permit for DIY work without a contractor’s license. I can’t get a license without an insurance certificate and I can’t get a certificate because my agent won’t give one to me. On top of it all, even if I did have all of these things, I’d have to hire an architect to create drawings for me that we already created.
I pouted the whole way home and called the contractor who did the building. I’m having him write up a quote for me to see how much they would charge to take this headache away. We’ll see what happens. Here I sit and wait…….
Sunday, November 12th, 2006
This is it! 5719 Blaine Avenue in Inver Grove Heights.
The pile of wood on the floor will become the walls of the classroom, photo studio, and back offices.
This was taken with my wide-angle lens. The space looks small in the photo, but it’s HUGE!
Mom waves, “hi!”
There’s a reason this store focuses on do-it-yourself projects. It’s because that’s pretty much what I do whenever I can!
This weekend began the HUGE task of starting the build-out for the store! My Mom came down this weekend to help get things started. We started by beginning to paint the ceiling. Wow, what a task. We worked Saturday and Sunday on it and only have a small section done. It takes quite a while because there’s a lot of surface area to cover.
We’ll continue to paint this week. It’s pretty exhausting. I plan to put together a scrapbook of the building of the store because it supports the DIY emphasis. About the only thing we won’t do ourselves is the electrical work. We’re painting the ceiling, framing the walls, drywalling, painting the walls, setting up the computer network, decorating, and everything else I’m forgetting.
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
Wow, two posts in one day…this must mean I’m getting a lot done, right? Hopefully it means that. Otherwise, it means I’m spending too much time writing entires and not enough time working. Tee hee!
All my life the only type of chamber I’ve ever belonged to was that of the orchestra variety. Well, today I joined a chamber of another kind. Drum roll…….bdrbdrbdrbdrbdr……. The River Heights Chamber of Commerce’s newest member is, Ekcetera Productions, LLC. Wow, I’m so excited. I hope this will bring lots of opportunities to the company and can help me grow and thrive. It was a pricey membership, but one that I feel is essential given that my new store will be located in a prime location in the area. I will have a large presence in the community, so I need to be actively involved in other aspects. Hopefully someday I can join the St. Paul Chamber, as the graphic design biz will hopefully be permantly located downtown St. Paul, however, I have to pick and choose and for now, we’ll start small.
Yeah Ekcetera!
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
Lesson #4503: Know your industry. In my corner of business, things are on a tight schedule. When someone needs something done, they check up on you and don’t let you forget it. I’m used to being checked up on. So, naturally, I assume that when I am the client and I am hiring someone, they will assume I will be checking up on them, so they will contact me with the status on things…..not true in the construction world. Maybe it’s my frustration with being checked up on, or maybe it’s my tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I assumed I would receive a call guiding me through the next step. Well, I needed to do some checking up. I had sent an electrical plan with instructions to call me to direct me to a resource for lighting. I waited for a couple of days and thought it was fishy that I was told the entire space would be complete by Monday, but hadn’t heard about the lighting yet. (I’m leaving out LOTS of detail here….you don’t want to know about this entire process!)
So, today I called to see if I could get some recommendations and it turns out that they were waiting for me to make up my mind. humm…..do you see the problem here? Well….after a few phone calls, I now have an appointment on Thursday to get the lighting squared away and to pick up a key to the store. We’re in! I’ll be ready to start this weekend with building some walls. Humm, that means I have to go get a builder’s permit and actually make up my mind about the lighthing.
Wow, it just hit me….I am starting to panic. I have a LOT to do and now it’s the time when it needs to get done. Up until now, I’ve been waiting to do things because I couldn’t do anything with the store not being ready. So, I’ve been running through the list of things in my mind and putting them on a virtual check list. Now, it’s time to take action. The checklist has to become real and tangible. It’s overwhelming. Goodbye to my relaxed evenings with a good meal and good entertainment on TV and a couch full of warm kitten and husband bodies. I thought things were busy until now. Looks like maximum capacity hasn’t yet been reached.
From now on, you’ll find me running like a whirlwind in my own little world. I apologize in advance to those whom I ignore and for those things that I neglect until it’s over.
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
For two years in a row, I have managed to make Christmas the absolute last thing that I want to think about. Last year, it was the wedding. Yes, it was the THE wedding of the year. Everyone should have been honored to be invited to such a spectacular soiree. Ok, i’m just kidding. Now, I truly know what people mean when they say no one cares about your wedding as much as you do. Not even the groom! Seriously, I don’t regret a second of it or a penny spent - it was my DREAM! But, it’s over now and the resulting marriage is so much more important than that day. I digress…
This year I have managed to do the same thing, but this time, it’s the store. I received word yesterday that the space should be finished and ready for my acceptance on Monday. Welcome to my new home for the next two months! Because I’m independent, frugal, and stubborn, I’m going to try to do entirely too much of the build-out myself. So, this weekend begins the first of many in which I will work to open my store in a timely manner.
When I received a quote yesterday for painting the ductwork-exposed ceiling, I nearly fell off my chair. Now, I respect a painter’s job and if I were a painter, I’m sure I’d charge the same, but I can’t help but try to find ways to save my hard-earned (or hard-borrowed in this case) pennies. So, in the usual KellyDIY style, hubby and I are going to attempt this chore ourselves for less than half the cost. You’ll see us up on a ladder with masks and spray gun in hand making a mess. I hope we don’t regret this decision.
I’m sure there will be many more of these chair-rocking quotes to come. I’ve already stumbled upon many. It will be a true test of my handiness. But, nevertheless, as I watch the rest of the world anticipate the birth of Jesus, I’ll look at their strings of lights and day-after-Thanksgiving sales and say, “Bah humbug.” I’ll be rejoicing that the Savior is born every day in my new little store until it’s open. Merry Ekcetera.
Wednesday, November 1st, 2006
You may have seen this before, but I made you a snowflake….
http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/index.html?id=2714006
Be sure to wait for mine to drop…. This is something to inspire some fun and creativity for you. It’s fun to watch all the different snowflakes too. Leave a message for someone if you wish.
Enjoy!