Not even a week left to go and in true Phyllis and Emilia fashion, we are behind on our punch list. This is gonna be a fun week if it doesn’t kill us.

I (Phyllis here) am on telephone standby jury duty all week. Yeah, I flaked on getting out of that one. It’s most likely all good. Called last night and I’m off the hook, but then they mentioned that I have to call in every night for 2 weeks. WTF? If I got put on a trial, it would last less time.

Ordered stenciling online for the gold leafing for the shop window. The description said 4.5″ x 5.5″ and we thought that meant each letter, but the entire card with all letters was that big. Sooo, now we gotta find a local crafts store that sells antique looking lettering. The closest Michaels is Rego Park. We’re probably better off just going to Pearl Paint on Canal.

So, what else is on the to do list?

1. Price and display the gazillion items I bought at markets yesterday.
2. Paint some more pieces. Touch up and fix the ones we’ve been bashing about.
3. Paint the lettering if we ever get these damn stencils.
4. Clean! Clean! Clean!
5. Pick up food and booze.
6. More marketing. Hey, spread the word!

Well, it doesn’t sound so bad when it’s narrowed down to a list of six items, but please note that a “gazillion” pieces take awhile to price and we probably have quite a few pieces that need painting and touch up.

But it’s all good. It’s only Monday. Yep, alllll good.

That was one harsh winter, huh kids?! We put off any exterior work on the shop until it warmed up. With 10 days to go until opening, we were cutting it close, but we lucked out with one nice day this week and our team of three got the entire front done in just a few hours!

Ok, so we didn’t do any major work since we have a shoestring budget and want to bypass permits. We hung our 4ft sign because anything over 6ft needs a permit. We dry brushed the icky non-antique brick to brighten things up and added a lovely teal to the window sill.

As soon as the paper in the windows came down, people starting peeking in. What we thought was a low traffic block on a dead end street seemed fairly busy. Gotta get used to that feeling of being on display.

Can’t find the “before” shots we took, so here’s the tattoo parlor that was formerly in the space. Yeah, they photoshopped their sign in.

We set the date for the grand opening. We may not be ready, but “Chaos” is our middle name. On Saturday, April 12th, Reclaimed Home will open it’s doors to the public come hell or high water.

There is plenty left to do! With the winter being what it was, the front of the store still looks like dreck. It’s supposed to warm up next week, so hopefully we’ll have our sign up and paper off the windows to start.

Still seeking more inventory, but it looks like a fine weekend for estate sales! We have some decent repurposed pieces and plan to create some more, but then we need to fill the gaps with awesome flea market finds at great prices. Something for everyone, knowwhatimsayin?

Marketing? Yeah, gotta get on that. Hey, spread the word, will ya? Please? And don’t forget to mark your own calendar. There will be refreshments all weekend.

Our space is starting to resemble a store. We’re still far from the finish line (or rather, starting line) as our intention is NOT to be just another antiques shop. The plan was to take in a bunch of furniture from a single source and sell it while we get the shop ready, so we can save the time of running around shopping. That’s fine. But we need more of our own reclaimed creations before opening!

So, I’ll run around shopping most of the week while Emilia gets creative back at the shop. Shopping and creating? Sounds like fun to me.

We got the keys to the store on January 15th. Waited about two weeks for Con Ed to turn on our meters, in which time we did renovations in the cold, running an extension cord from the basement to power up our lights and tools. It’s been such a tough winter that we haven’t wanted to even look outside to figure out what to do with the storefront. We knew we needed a sign. Well, now we can finally check that one off the list.

As you can see from the header of this page, Reclaimed Home’s “look” is a blue background with stamped white lettering. Emilia is all captivated by her precious reactive metal paints, so we used the blue patina on tin ceiling tiles. It looks great!

One problem. When she started to seal it, the whole thing darkened. We called Metal Effects. They told us that it doesn’t need to be sealed. It would be fine outdoors. Great! We just wanted to test it before getting up on a ladder and bolting the sign to the front of the building. Sprayed some water on it and off came some blue.

The sign is now sitting in the workshop until we figure out if there’s a way to protect it while keeping that lovely bright blue. Worst case scenario is that we’ll have a darker colored sign.

But at least it will look nicer than the “Store for rent” sign that’s currently there.

Our first revitalized piece in the shop! Meet our first child. Someone stupidly didn’t get before pictures (me) but if we decide to paint pieces, it’s because they are past their prime. In this case, the wood was all dinged up and needed filling, etc.

Emilia went with a patinaed copper top (Metal Effects!) and antique white base. High gloss poly finish on the top so it can be used for just about anything. The base is satin poly.

Lemme tell ya, it’s so nice to have one bright piece in the shop! Everything we picked up from the Beacon dealer is creating a sea of brown. It brightens up the joint!

This piece is for sale here. Go buy it.

No, the shop won’t be ready to fully open until April, but we’re slowly getting there. For one, we are letting people come in by appointment as it’s getting organized and sorted out. In other words, lots of stuff is getting stored in the basement.

Our workspace is coming along thanks to anal Emilia! She even started working on the first repurposed piece! It’s a dresser that was too beaten up to sell as is. Wonder what she’ll do with it?

We’re not going to tell you what we got the chrome and glass table and mid century dresser for. Nor will we divulge the cost (or lack of) of the marble table top that is not in the picture. Do we feel guilty for taking this stuff in and turning it over for a profit? Nah. It makes us feel better than begging for money to open the store via crowdfunding. At least we’re earning it by schlepping!

A big “THANK YOU!” to Nora, the editor of Ditmas Park Corner for taking the time to find a new home for items that might have otherwise ended up in the landfill. A bigger thank you for letting that home be us and for helping load the truck.

PS: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Wondering what the status is of the brick and mortar shop? Well, it’s getting there. We took partitions down, cleaned it up a bit with white paint, and the floors now have two coats of gray paint (not in photo).

Today we are working on putting a design on the floor so we can polyurethane it and get some merchandise in there. We won’t be ready to open our doors to the public at that time as we’ll still need to get our work space ready, but we’ll probably start doing business by appointment only.

Some plumbing issues have been addressed. Wow, that was nuts. The toilet was connected to the sink and the faucet in one bathroom made a flood in the second bathroom when turned on. One toilet was not in use at all because it wasn’t hooked up to a water source. One sink was hanging off the wall. The place was a tattoo parlor previously, but it’s scary how unhygienic it was.

The front of the building will need some sprucing up but it’s just too damn cold to go out there to even look at it.

If all goes smoothly, it’s possible we can have a soft opening in mid March. No promises though.