Almost Completed!

well, i'm sure you're all upset with me for not blogging properly the last couple months. but....if i had been blogging, then i would not have been working on the store, then i'd never be able to open, and you'd never get to eat truffles, rocky road popcorn or all sorts of lovely treats from the chocolate season ever again. :P so i figure you'd forgive my lack of posting with some updated pictures of the store!


things are moving along, you saw some of our "before" photos when i last posted, and here are some "inbetween" photos, and then the last ones are "so close i can taste the finish, but not quite there yet" photos.

what's taking so long you may ask? well, really, with the help of friends and family (toooooooo many friends to count (just trying to name some would be: the stones, limbaughs, christensens, loeschens, joe marck and lizzie lebedz (their generous personalities will deserve a note all by themselves!) and many many more!) and some of the key players have been: rich and linda feaster, ed and becky berg, and sara and scott lockard, but, as you can tell, we've been doing a lot of the demo/construction/finishing touches ourselves. So, as talented as we think we are :) we're not as fast as professionals!

but we've been doing lighting, painting, then touch ups for painting, building the bar, doing baseboard and quarter round, then searching for inventory (aprons, purses, wine etc), ordering business cards, GC cards and envelopes, more kitchen accessories, prints and frames for the studio, sewing pillows for the store (thanks sara!) finding more furniture, ordering chocolate, making the chalkboard, figuring out pricing for ALL the products, learning how to use our cash register (ok, that's on the "to-do" list still) setting up a credit terminal, ordering and putting away boxes for confections, setting up the kitchen and familiarizing myself with my surroundings, ordering coffee equipment, coffee, learning how to USE the coffee equipment *ha ha ha*

and brad's still doing photography, print orders, making albums, responding to emails etc, and these are all things we've been doing...and there's so much more i can't even remember it all! oh yes...and lets not forget the fact that bradley and i bought a new house and we finally closed on it after "renting" and living there for a month...so we are slowly...slowly....trying to unpack and make it our own!

so i hope you enjoyed some photos, sorry, there's still newspaper on our gorgeous front windows, and yes, i need to do some major cleaning...but you'll get the idea!

also, what's to come? well, an awning for the front of the building in the next week (i hope!) putting in the coffee equipment, finishing the bench cushions, getting tables and chairs, and hiring and training an employee, doing a ton of paperwork, and hoping for a potential opening in mid-end january. *gulp* wish us luck and i'll let you all know when we're open and when the shopping cart is ready to use for national and international orders! (even though i expect all of you to come to algona to see us at the store!)

thanks again for all your support and interest....and see you soon....at the store! you can browse gorgeous photography with a very handsome photographer, or just stop by and pull up a chair at the chocolate bar :P