We are officially open. Our grand opening was a huge success.
The candy displays look wonderful, especially at night!!!!
Also in the day:)
And our sitting area and International Marketplace displays turned out incredible:)
Overall it has been hectic the last few days, but it has been worth it!!!
Its finally confirmed, we are opening Trovato Street downstairs. It’s an International Marketplace with Nostalgic Candy. This idea has been in the works for a few months but until we had a Manager, and the Certificate of Occupancy downstairs, we did not want to jinx it:) We are opening on Halloween and will be open through the weekend for Cleburne’s Christmas Shopping event on Sunday. After that, we will be open normal hours. We are still working those out:)
Here are a few pictures while we get ready.
The Candy displays are based on the 1920’s parts counters we recovered from the building during the renovation.
Historic signage from Cleburne.
The International Market place displays still under construction.
Stay tuned this week for our Facebook and Web Page to go live!!!! I’ll post them here once they are published.
We are close to announcing the future of downstairs. The sign has gone up. All we need to do is finish the details before announcing to the world!!!!!!
The floor is almost complete, bathrooms just need the grab bars, and everything needs cleaned. After that we are ready!!!! Stay tuned:)
Everything outside is finished and ready for paint. Inside I mounted wood on the backside with trim pieces and caulking. This week our painter will start with the outside and hopefully work his way inside. We are looking forward to finishing up the front of the building.
It’s been a few weeks since the last update. A lot has happened since then. History has been revealed in the front of the building. For right now we are rebuilding the area above the existing store front. We will be reusing the existing glass/doors and repaint everything once its complete.
One incredible item uncovered was the original steel column on the North West corner of the building. The new design will have the tops of the columns above the glass exposed.
While the front demolition/rebuild is going on we are finishing the floor.
The floor after the repairs and sanding.
And now here is the floor with the first coat of stain and sealant.
We are almost done with the brick work downstairs. All that is left is to brush the brick, vacuum everything, and then seal it.
The floor is still coming along. This week they should finish the subfloor and continue to relay the original flooring back down before sanding and sealing.
Slowly it’s getting cleaned up.
The 1st floor retail area restoration continues. Here is the East wall brick repair and repointing.
The bricks are three levels thick. Notice how some of the bricks in the middle level are collapsing.
An overview of the East wall restoration.
The West wall restoration.
And finally the floor restoration.
Here is where our contractor is tying the restored floors into the original flooring.
The brick work should be completed in the next few days. The flooring restoration will be at least another week. Afterwards we will seal the brick, stain/seal the floors, and finishing painting the walls and ceiling.
The downstairs flooring continues. We finished exposing the broken floor joists and now we are cleaning up all the trash, old wood, and broken bricks left over from the years.
We are having to replace almost all of the floor joists on the east wall.
And here is the final pile of wood we saved. We will need to remove the nails, plane/even them up, and then our contractor will reuse them above the new subfloor/floor joists.
Along with the flooring we continue with our numerous projects. We found some bar stools for upstairs. We removed the seat pads and are having them recovered.
And finally an overview of the upstairs from when you walk up the south-side stairway. Things are coming together.
The downstairs continues. We are having to pull up more of the floor as we find damage.
This photo shows how much the floor joists have failed. Notice against the wall, at one time the floor was level. Also there is a lot of trash that we have to remove and dirt that needs to be leveled out.
We are having to pull up the floor far enough so our contractor can repair the damage. Hopefully this will be enough. We really do not want to have to redo the complete floor.
We are taking our time, pulling up the old floor, so we can reuse the wood and keep the original look.
It’s a slow process but in the end it will turn out incredible with the original look but with the strength to last another 100 years!!!!!!!!
There is mud everywhere but they finished the water main extension from across the street. Once everything dries out they will pave it over. It’s been a dirty couple of weeks. We have footprints all over our new floors. This past weekend they filled the pipe with water to ensure there are no leaks. This week everything will be connected and the water turned on to our Fire Suppression System.
