Final Lights

Ah, another loose end wrapped up.  Our hanging lights have been installed.  Believe it or not, these little guys cause a lot of heartaches; mom didn’t like them, they were expensive, everyone thought that someone else had ordered them, and then they took 6 weeks to fabricate so we had to open without them.  But here they are and they work beautifully.  They illuminate the the front of our deli case, the top of the case and the scale because each light can be pointed in any direction.  Hugh picked them out from the 3G company.

 

Hiccups

 

Sometimes things don’t go as planned.  No, let’s say that when you need things to go smoothly, crazy things happen.  Yesterday I arrived at the store to find Mike Gardner, his crew, and the shopping center maintenance crew all running around under this waterfall that had formed in our storage room.  Everyone was wet along with everything in that room, the floor in the next room and the ceiling in the room below.  It was bad.  Today this first picture makes it seem better than I remember.  My memory includes a trash can full of dirty water and soggy drywall, waiting in the dark for 40 minutes while Ryan from DC Electric dried each breaker on the electric panel, and carrying lots of wet cardboard.  It was not what I wanted to do that morning.  I immediately set to work trying to rescue products from their soggy boxes and, luckily, almost everything was still dry inside.

The drain pipe from the roof broke at a joint right behind our storage room walls.  What’s terrible is that we knew about the leak on Monday and didn’t fix it.  It formed a bubble of water underneath the paint on the wall near the ceiling . I moved the boxes away from that immediate area but they remained in the same room.  When it started raining on Wednesday night I didn’t think for a second about that bubble on the wall.  That night of heavy rain just blew open the connection between two pieces of pipe and the water began to soak our ceiling.  The water pooled on top of the ceiling long enough to trickle down the outside of the walls before dissolving a hole in the center.  This picture is from outside the storage room.

 Actually, most of the water drained straight down our back wall into the basement tenant’s space.  I didn’t go down there but I know it must have been a disaster zone.  

We had a pretty bad situation ourselves, the hole from the first picture is just the part that collapsed on its own, the whole ceiling in the storage room was wet.  The panels were removed yesterday and this morning new dry wall panels were installed and patched.  

As of yesterday morning our final building inspection was scheduled for that afternoon making this bump in the road seem like a road block!  In order to receive our certificate of occupancy we were supposed to prove that construction has finished and here we are with a newly installed ceiling, joints barely patched, floorboards that need replacing and a couple other recently patched holes.  

 

We had to reschedule the final inspection for this afternoon and WE PASSED!  The Town office was very understanding and they treated the leak and its repairs as an incident separate from our renovation of the space.  Even though the light fixture in the storage room had to be removed leaving just the cables dangling…  it will be repaired on Monday!  We are fit for business!  Actually, I have a lot of work to do before we are really ready to open the doors.  It is all up to me now, no more excuses about the construction!

 

Let’s review some other hiccups from the last couple weeks:

 

both True freezers arrived broken (repaired Monday and today under warranty)

the poinsettias that we bought for decoration stained the marble counters

the other marble counter got scratched

the grease trap was misbehaving and flooded the whole prep room

the slicer didn’t fit on the countertops

the Southern case doesn’t have a real work surface

we didn’t pull enough cables for internet and phone in the right places to make a good network

 

Some good things from the last couple weeks:

 

the hanging lights arrived today (they took ~4 weeks)

the building inspector was understanding about our leak situation

I found a source for parmesan knives

the food arrived ok

the internet will work

the POS system seems easy to understand (I hope I don’t jinx it) 

we will open before Christmas (unless the whole roof comes crashing down on us)

 

Millwork is not like clockwork

What a difference a day makes!  So much happened yesterday, Eastern Millwork was here all day with a full crew.  SolidTops marble finishers were also here installing the backsplashes inside the cabinets and the top for the register area.  

The shelf that surrounds the landing is in place and connects exactly with the cabinets:

The shelves for underneath the stairs were installed, fitting perfectly into that cubby:

On this set of cabinets the doors were being fixed to make room for one more run of shelves:

A tough spot in that cabinet was being worked out:

This was added:

We needed to add railings in the stairwell that were at the correct height, the fire marshall insists on this:

Upstairs, the eat at counter framework was set in place.  I think that SolidTops is due back today (well, I hope) to install the marble that rests on the supports:

You can see there is a channel for the marble to fit into but it shouldn’t go all the way to the left wall, that needs to be filled in by drywall.  Also, I left a gap between the left wall and the end of the counter top to prevent spills form hitting the wall directly but that decision was based on the assumption that there was a wooden backsplash all the way around the countertop…I need to work this out.

There is work left to do!

 

Pieces of the Puzzle

Things are coming together, cabinets are fitting with marble tops and the tile floors, the trim is snug with the walls, the construction is wrapping up.  I brought in all the equipment over a week ago but I left it in boxes because there was still a lot of dust around and work wasn’t really done.  I didn’t want to damage anything.  After we cleaned up at the end of last week I unwrapped the scales, the panini presses and the slicers.  I was worried about there being enough electrical outlets in all the cubbies, but they’re all there, I worried that the refrigerators wouldn’t fit into their inlets but they do, everything worked out except for the slicers.  Somehow they were overlooked!  Really, it is my fault, but they just don’t fit on the counters!  They are medium-duty scales, 1/2 HP, 12″ blade but their bases are slightly big for their class.  Originally I picked Berkel slicers with the same power profile and those were the specs I submitted to Hugh Boyd, our architect.  Hugh checked the size of those and knew that they would fit on 24″ counters.  For whatever reason, I decided to switch to the Univex brand.  I did not realize how tight that counter space is or how big the slicer was so I didn’t bother to check either measurement.  Stupid!!  Another lesson learned.  

You can see that we’re off by about an inch and a half.  The best solution so far is to silicone glue additional pieces of marble to the top of that undercounter refrigerator (which sticks out from the cabinets) so that it equals the height of the existing counter and have the new marble butt up against the counter top as seamlessly as possible.  I’m already convincing myself that this is going to be better than the thing that was supposed to happen there, the marble was supposed to extend more right there so that it could cover that refrigerator.  This new idea gives the slicer more support!  I’m feeling much better about my mistake right now but not totally convinced.  I’ll feel better when I can see that the solution is really seamless and looks planned…to others.

 

Inspections Begin!

In preparation for our electric and HVAC inspections this afternoon, we cleaned the store to make it look more complete.  It turned out to be a great idea, the store looks much better overall and areas that aren’t finished are more obvious.  For example, the cabinets on both walls are missing their top panels:

Luckily, the cabinets don’t have anything to do with electrical wiring or HVAC installation so we passed those inspections without any trouble.  [thanks to Ryan from DC Electric for posing in these pictures and wiring Piazza]

 

Getting Closer…

We are getting closer to being finished with construction, for comparison, this top photo was taken on November 18th.  None of the lights are installed, the floor is unfinished and the cabinets have been brought in, but they are not set in place.  Those bars coming off from the landing are going to support a long wooden shelf.

 The picture above was taken on November 28th, the day after Thanksgiving.  You can see that there is brown paper on the floor indicating that the tile has been installed, most of the cabinets are in place, and the lights have been installed.  All the equipment has arrived, the shiny thing on the back wall is actually a self-serve freezer and refrigerator.

Today, December 3rd part of the top cabinet on the left wall was installed.  We had to wait to install this set of shelves because there is a marble counter separating the bottom and top cabinets.  You’ll see.  

Here is another view from today, the marble tops have been set on the window cabinets and the track lights are being installed above.  

 

The track lights and the cabinets were a couple of good things from today but I had a bit of bad news, too.  I found out that there wasn’t enough marble at our fabricator in Easton to finish our upstairs bar, meaning I had to go up to Baltimore to pick a couple new slabs to match the ones we’re already using.  It was annoying but going to the stone yard is kind of cool:  

 

The space seems much bigger than the picture suggests, each of the slabs there is taller than me (although I’m not that tall) and there are a couple of grabby things that move the slabs around very slowly.  Walking among the stones is mildly perilous, it’s like being in a maze designed by Richard Serra, being surrounded by all these beautiful things that could crush you.  And they leave you there, unattended, and you have to find your way back out again.  Today I told the guy that even though I had been there before I wanted him to walk me to the White Venatino section so that he would remember that I was in there in case I got lost.  

Another cool thing about going to the stone yard is that you can look at their relief map of Tuscany.  It’s a good area to show in relief, it sure is bumpy!  

 

 

Display Cases Arrive

On Friday our two display deli cases arrived in Easton, they came in their own truck all the way from Tennessee.  They were custom built as one 12′ unit by the fantastic Southern Store Fixtures Company.  I specifically chose Southern for several reasons; they’re American, they make beautiful cases, and they’re easy to service.  Up in New York I worked with Arneg cases and there was always a problem– they were leaking water, they froze, and their supports inside broke.  Arneg is more sexy but Southern is better in my eyes (*Three year update:  not a problem with them ever!).

Getting the beauty off the delivery truck and into the store was a scary process to watch but the case is safe and sound now.  In the first picture, the case is being moved off the delivery truck on the right, onto a rollback tow truck.  This was done on a slope so the case moved off the delivery truck just fine, but was a little stubborn about stopping once it made it to the tow truck bed…

In this picture, the roll back tow truck is lowering its bed down in front of the store.  The two brick column supports were about one inch wider than the ramp!  Once the flat bed was lowered to the ground the case was rolled down.  The angle of the ramp was relatively steep compared to the length of the case so the back end of the case had to be lifted by hand to clear the ramp.  That was when we discovered that the dollys were not bolted to the case.  One guy was stuck holding up the case with his back while they others rolled the case forward a bit and repositioned the dolly!  That was frightening for everyone.  Now the case is safe and sound.  Stay tuned for the unveiling! 

 

A Sign

Before we open, we need to have a sign made for the building (this is just one of many things that need to happen before we open but that’s not a fun blog entry).  We would love to have a huge sign that people can read from down the block.  It would be really great if we had a sign that was big enough to give people a chance to re-read it a couple of times and realize that it says “PIAZZA” not “PIZZA”.  However, there is a law in Easton against this kind of sign and we must obey the law.  

Easton requires that our sign must be less than or equal in area to the width of the store.  There was some misunderstanding on my part for a good three or so weeks about this, I thought that the sign couldn’t be taller in inches than the store was wide.  I’m just glad that’s all cleared up now because now we realize that the sign can be any shape, unconstrained by height!  It was pretty silly that I thought they meant height…  

This is a photoshop-ed image of our store with a brand new sign!

 

Building Permit!

 

Finally, some good news to share with you all– On Monday morning I went to the Town Office and picked up our Building Permit (and wrote a $687 check for processing, I already paid $200 just for the application…)!! YEAH!!!!! Let the demolition begin! I went into the store today and not only is demolition almost done but the electricians were already getting to work. We may meet our target schedule after all!

 

Contractors

Let’s go back a few weeks because I’d like to explain to you how we picked a general contractor.  In a nutshell, it wasn’t a simple process, although it seems like it should have been.  You know, when something looks easy it never is, especially when it comes to construction.  

I didn’t know who to call, I was new in town.  I looked online for contractors and eventually found two in the immediate area who did commercial projects.  I got a recommendation for the third and the fourth contractor found me.  I made appointments to meet each of them on site on Friday, August 21st.

I thought, okay, I’ll walk the contractors through the space, describe our project, they can take a set of plans, they will meet the architect, ask questions, they will call their subcontractors, make estimates, and we will pick from those three prices.  I met with each of them and I told them that we were shooting for a very fast build-out.  Each seemed confident that they could meet the deadline I set and they each seemed helpful…then things kind of fizzled out.  This is what happened that day: 

 

Contractor One immediately seized on the project, he wanted to take the plans with him, he arrived with a couple subcontractors, and he asked me a lot of questions.

Contractor Two took a long look at the plans, walked through the building with me and told me that he would come back with his subcontractors to get an estimate.

Contractor Three didn’t want to see the plans, he said he had built the renovations in that space himself a few years ago and knew the site very well.  Three stated that he didn’t give estimates but he could get numbers from his subs.

Contractor Four didn’t want to see the plans because they weren’t final, I described to him the two changes that would be on the next plans but he didn’t want to take a copy of the plans.  Also, he told me I needed to make a list of all the work that needed to be done for the project.

 

Friday August 29th the contractors met with the architect individually.

Tuesday September 2nd contractor One asked me to open the store for him so he could show his subs the job.  When I arrived, contractor Two was on his way out with his subs.  Two had called the shopping center’s caretaker directly to allow him access to the space.  While I was there with One, he asked me questions about the design that were clearly marked in the plans.  One told me that I needed to rethink the ceiling material and I needed to change the plans.  I heard nothing from Three or Four that week.  

Tuesday Sept 9th contractor Two came forward with a reasonable estimate for the project and called us and the architect to find out if it was okay to suggest lower-priced lighting.  He submitted a quote for the project including the alternative fixtures on Wednesday.  

I called number One to find out if he had an estimate for us.  He read me the details his plumber had sent him.  Then he asked me if I had asked the architect to change our plans for the ceiling material.  I said no, I hadn’t.  I didn’t mention that his suggestion for ceiling tiles with perforations to absorb sound would violate Maryland state health code.  I asked him if he had other estimates and he said no, not yet.

I called number Three to ask him how he was doing.  He reminded me that he couldn’t make an estimate himself, could he get into the space next week to show his subs around?  I told him not to bother.

I called number Four and told him that I already had an estimate from someone else.  Four sounded surprised, he asked me how he could come up with an estimate if he didn’t have the final plans and I said he figured it out.

 

Friday the 12th I called number One to ask him if he had a complete estimate yet.  He told me he didn’t.  I apologized and told him that we were going to hire another contractor for the job.  He was shocked.  He asked how the other guy could come up with an estimate that quickly and insinuated that he had lied to us and made up numbers.  I told him that we had been going into the details of his estimate since he faxed it to us on Tuesday.  He hissed that he hoped whom ever we picked does a good job.  An hour later he faxed us a final estimate.  

 

I can’t believe these guys!  One was the guy who made all these assurances that we would meet our deadline but he lagged behind, tried to make all these unnecessary changes to our design and never really looked at the plans!  And then he was nasty to me when I told him that he hadn’t done what he had promised!!!  Four told me that I had to make a list of all the things that needed to be done for construction.  What did he think I was hiring him to do???  I don’t know anything about construction!  He’s the one who wouldn’t even look at the plans!!  I guess Three was just not really clear on how we were trying structure this estimate thing, I don’t know…I think he’s more of a house contractor.  Two was the only guy who came off as responsible, efficient and helpful. 

This turned out to be a race where one guy wins by default because all the other runners get disqualified.  Just to be fair, the guy we picked, number Two, is a really good contractor and a nice guy.  We’re happy we found him.

Just to be sure I hadn’t made any crazy demands from these guys I looked up what a general contractor’s roles and responsibilites are.  Being a general contractor is “a difficult role that requires real skill, expert knowledge and lots of time on on-site.”  You can decide if these guys fufill that role.