Sign o' the Times

Our new sign got installed!

We've been working on a logo for the business off-and-on for about a year. Kathy and I quickly realized we can't do it ourselves, so we hired somebody creative to design one for us. We had all sorts of clever ideas about integrating the "hart" (elk) into the logo, incorporating an outline of the house, adding swirly Victorian elements, etc. In short, we were probably a graphic designer's worst nightmare. "Oh, goody. Customers who think they know what they're doing..."

Eventually, we hit upon a design and a designer that we really liked. He's done a number of signs for local businesses around here, and we've always admired his work. His initial designs were a little too elaborate, with 3D pop-out deer and cute hearts, but in the end we think he got it about right.

The sign itself is made from a block of solid red cedar that's been sandblasted to give it a wavy textured background pattern. The main lettering is laser-cut from PVC (the same stuff they make sprinkler pipe out of) and will last more or less forever. The smaller lettering is expanded foam. The whole thing weighs maybe 100 pounds or so.

The black signposts were already here -- they held up the previous restaurant's sign -- but the top bar had rusted badly. No way it was going to hold up the new sign. Replacing it turned out to be pretty easy. I cut off almost the entire bar, leaving short stubs at either end. Then I rummaged around the local welding shops looking for inch-and-a-half square stock, the same size as the original bar. I also got some scrap pieces of square stock that were slightly smaller in cross section -- just the right size to slip inside the hollow cut-off ends of the old bar and support the new bar. A couple of metal screws and some JB Weld, and it's all as good as new. I can even disassemble and replace the bar again if I need to.

One nice side-effect of hanging the new sign is that we'll probably get fewer misguided visitors who want to check into the B&B next door but drag their suitcases up our front steps instead. This makes it pretty clear that we're not the local inn. On the other hand, if you try to make something idiot-proof, you just encounter newer idiots.

Bringing Home the Hardware

A lot of the "remodeling" lately has had less to do with making the house livable, and more with outfitting the business. Which isn't to say it's been easier...

Exhibit A is the collection of pots, pans, dishes, and glassware we've accumulated over the past few weeks. It's like moving to a new house after all your old stuff was lost in a fire or something. We need cooking utensils, forks, knives, and spoons for 30+ people, spatulas, mixing bowls, cutting boards, and so on. And most of the new stuff has to be NSF approved for commercial foodservice, so we can't just pop over to Costco or Target or Amazon and get what we want.

Instead, we've set up accounts with a handful of big foodservice distributors and have starting raiding their catalogs for hardware, like these pots and pans. The biggest surprise -- they're cheap! Most commercial stuff is stupidly expensive, but this 10-inch aluminum saucepan with the red handle was just eight bucks! (Actually, the handle was not included, and cost an extra $2.95.) Heck, for that price I can afford to ruin a pan a month and still stay in business. My next step is to season them all, which promises to use up a lot of vegetable oil and produce a lot of smoke. Should be fun.

Over in the "front of the house" (see, we're learning restaurant lingo) Kathy has assembled all the dishes and dinnerware we need. Every few days the UPS driver brings us a carton or two of bulk wineglasses, or plates, or those little ceramic sugar-packet holders. I never paid much attention to that stuff when we're eating out. Now we've got to find it all and bring it in-house. And find someplace to store it.

Some items seemed oddly expensive, like salt and pepper shakers, compared to wineglasses, which are pretty cheap. I'll remember that the next time I'm tempted to swipe goods from a restaurant table. And we found some beer glasses that can double as water glasses (we'll likely serve more of the latter than the former).

And of course, we have teapots. Lots and lots of teapots. The lids on these ones stay on pretty well, so we don't expect too many messy accidents.

The biggest downside to all this is the packing material. We've been going through a lot of cardboard boxes lately. Too many for our garbage company to handle, so we accumulate cardboard out in the backyard, where it gets wet overnight. A weekly chore is cutting up soggy cardboard and stuffing it into the recycling bin. Nobody told me the new business would be like this.

Turning the Tables

The tables are done, so now people have a place to rest their elbows when they sit. We made eight tables in total, four large and four small. Between these and the big dining room table we donated to the business, we should be able to seat about 32 people at once.

The tabletops are pine with pine trim around the edges. We put on two coats of stain, and then four or five coats of clear varnish. As usual, we did a very light sand in between coats, so it came out nice and smooth.