Getting the Temperature Right, Part 2

One of the reasons we wanted to own our building was to take responsibility for its infrastructure so that we could make more efficient choices. Well, one of those choices presented itself a little earlier than we expected...

We wrote earlier about how this lead us to install a new high efficiency furnace in the back room of the new store. What we didn't mention then was that we were hoping to get a couple more years out of the 1963 forced air beast that served the front part of the store.

Well, we came up a bit short on that. We were open only 5 days when we heard this loud clunk clunk clunk CLUNK BANG! from the basement. The pulley system that drives the blower fan had seized and self-destructed. No more heat.

Well, 47 years of service isn't bad, right?

So, we called Boehm Heating once again. They put a temporary blower in the old furnace (so we could stay warm during last week's arctic blast) and put us the schedule to get another new furnace.

As of today, we are now the proud owners of 2 high-efficiency furnaces, each rated at 95.5% efficiency, which is about 25% more efficient than before. which means our gas bill should also be about 25% less.

Our new furnace. Yeah!

Although it was kind of a bummer to deal with this so soon after opening, at least we were able to use it as an opportunity to improve our building and, just a bit, our planet as well.

Thanks again to Boehm Heating for their quick response and service.

Extreme Floor Restoration

One of the many things that we've been working hard on in our new store is the floor. When we first looked at our building, we noticed there was solid maple flooring underneath the old vinyl tiles that could probably be rescued. After all, what floor covering is greener than restoring the floor that's already there? All we had to do was rip up the vinyl and refinish the maple.

And, after 70 years as a hardware store, it probably had a lot of character, too. Well, it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that...

First, we had to move the stairway which led down to the basement. It was inconveniently located in the middle of the room, which made sense when the basement had been used as retail space. In mid-October, we ripped out the stairs, installed new floor joists, and lay new subfloor. A good weekend project, but we were just getting started.

Next, we had to rip up the old vinyl tiles (after first getting them tested for asbestos--these one dated from the 1980s and were clean). The tiles themselves came up easy enough--our 9 year old son Riley and his cousin Ian popped most of them up in about 1/2 an hour. The 1/2" plywood underneath, however, was nailed to the maple with 1 1/2" resin-coated staples and took a lot longer. We hired a crew of about 6 guys and it took them the better part of two days to rip it up and pull all the staples. By the time they were done, the plywood looked like shredded wheat. It was then that we discovered dozens of holes and thousands of staples and nails in the maple floor underneath.

So, the next step was to fix all the holes in the floor, including where the stairway had been. We went up to the Maplewood Re-Use Center and bought 500 square feet of used maple flooring and hired The Transformed Tree to install it, which took several days. Because the flooring is tongue and grooved, it had to be meticulously feathered in to the existing floor.

We fixed some of the smaller holes, ourselves, too. Here's Millie fixing a hole where an old drain pipe had been.

Then, we had to pull thousands of little staples out of the maple and set thousands of nails that had been face-nailed into the surface of almost every individual piece of maple above every floor joist. It takes quite a punch to set a 9 penny nail into solid maple--usually about three hits with a 3-lbs. maul. Dan, our floor guy Shawn Russell, and 3 other guys got the job done after about 4 grueling days of work.

In one spot, we saw that someone had started to sand the floor previously and then gave up. It seemed clear, after several days on our hands and knees, that the nails and staples had deterred them. Which was probably why the vinyl flooring had been installed in the first place. It seems we were just a little more stubborn.

Finally, Shawn was ready to start sanding. He started off with some extremely course 14 grit sandpaper paper, which showed immediate results. Then, he worked up to finer grits. It took 4 days of sanding before he was ready to apply the polyurethane.

And here's the finished floor, finally completed just a few days before Christmas. We used a commercial grade low-odor water-based polyurethane which won't off-gas and should last for years. The floor is beautiful, although it does look a bit "distressed" in places. This was a hardware store for 70 years, after all. It's one of many things that remind us that our building has a history and has played an important part in its community for a long time. We're proud to be continuing that tradition.

Our Upcoming Move

We've managed to firm up a schedule for our move to our new store on Como Avenue. Here's the details:

We will be closing after Christmas for about 2 weeks. We'll be packing everything up the first week, then putting everything back together the next week. Both our store and our website will be closed during that time.

We are planning to reopen at our new location on January 7.

We realize this will be inconvenient if you need to return a Holiday present, so we'll be extending our normal 30-day return policy to 60 days for all purchase made in December.

We're excited, a little scared, and very overwhelmed about this huge undertaking. Please visit us at our new store when we reopen--we think you'll love it!

Getting the Temperature Right

One of the things we're really excited about in our new store is central air. And when we say excited, we mean pretty excited.

In the 11 years we've been here, we've loved lots of things about our current space, but the radiator heat wasn't one of them. The 85 year old system was controlled from one thermostat for the whole building, so we had a hard time controlling the temperature of our store. Some days we had to wear coats all day and other days we had to keep the doors open in the middle of winter.

And, our only way of cooling the store was four window air conditioners mounted above the doors which sounded a little like a jet airplane when we got them all going.

Needless to say, this was hardly an efficient arrangement. We got a quote at one point to install a more efficient cooling system, but the price was prohibitive.




So, we were really happy to watch the folks from Boehm Heating install our shiny new high efficiency furnace, which is one of two that'll heat and cool our new store. We'll have a constant temperature, smart thermostats that reduce usage when we're closed, and a much smaller carbon footprint.

We though we'd share this because if it all works right, you probably won't notice these improvements at all--it'll just be quietly keeping us comfortable.

Let’s make "Black Friday" less Blechy!

We’ve always wondered about the shopping phenomenon which has come to be known as “Black Friday.” Why do big box stores make their customers and staff get up super early and fight crowds just for a few good deals?

We thought we’d make the whole experience a little more pleasant! No need to get up early—just stop by during our normal hours for a cup of hot cider. And, with a purchase over $30, you can draw an instant-win prize from our Black Friday fishbowl. You’ll draw one of the following fabulous prizes:

• A $5 Peapods Gift Card
  
• A $20 Peapods Gift Card (at least 4 available in the fish bowl!)
• A $50 Peapods Gift Card (one of these in the bowl)
• A Moby Wrap gift set including a Moby Wrap, Baby Blanket, and Baby Hat (a $70 value)
• Our giant “Red” Fraggle Rock Doll (a $120 retail value)

Plus, receive a free extra large reusable canvas shopping bag with every purchase over $50.

Plus, our Buy 5 Get 1 Free sale on Bum Genius 4.0 pocket diapers continues.

PLUS, All Fuzzi Bunz Perfect Size Diapers will be on sale for $11.99. (We've got lots of smalls, fewer mediums and larges)

As always, gift wrapping is free.

Let’s make the day after Thanksgiving fun and fabulous!

P.S. We’ll be closed on Thanksgiving, Have a great day with your family!

A Big Announcement: Peapods is Moving!

We are excited to announce that Peapods will be moving in January to a bigger (and in many ways, better!) location at 2290 Como Avenue West in St. Paul. We will remain at our current location through the Holidays.

The new store will be about 50% bigger than our current store, so we'll have even more room for new products and increased selection. What's more, we'll have some great new neighbors. Within one block of our new store is Bibelot gifts, Micawbers Books Store, a branch of the St. Paul Public Library with a special children's book collection, a Dunn Brothers Coffee Shop, the Finnish Bistro and Bakery, a post office, a great neighborhood grocery store, and the Muffaletta Restaurant. There's also two great city parks within easy walking distance.

We'll be easy to get to, too. We're about 3/4 east of Highway 280 on Como, just a hop skip and a jump from I-94 and Highway 36.

Our store will be in the old Saint Anthony Park Harware Store building, which we've purchased and are now busy renovating. With our lease expiring at our current location, we really wanted to own our next building so that we could strengthen our roots in the community, make investments to improve the sustainability of our business, and to ensure the long term viability of our family business.

We've always felt very much at home here in Macalester-Groveland. And, while we're excited about our new store, we're sad to be leaving the neighborhood that's nurtured us so well for 12 years. We simply couldn't find a suitable building to buy anywhere nearby. In many ways, this feels like we are closing our current store and opening something new. We are extremely thankful to all of our current neighbors and we hope you'll visit us often in our new store.

We've been working on this project for over a year; getting our finances in order, looking at buildings, and then long months completing all the work that goes into buying a commercial building, which is about 200 times more work than buying a house.

Over the next two months, we'll be pounding nails, painting, sanding, and scraping to prepare our new space (during the Holiday season no less!) So, if you see us with saw dust in our hair or paint on our clothes, that'll be why.

Millie building new basement stairs, Dan framing in a new restroom.

Finally, we'd like to thank our Realtor, Steve Townley, who stood by us throughout the 6 months it took to complete this transaction; Park Midway Bank, which provided our financing; and Stew and Kathy McIntosh, the previous owners of the hardware store, who allowed us to begin work several weeks before we closed the purchase.

Thank you to all of our customers! We think you'll really love our new store!

Our Trip to the ABC Kids Expo

From Dan: Once again, Millie and I made the trek to the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. If you can imagine ten gazillion square feet of convention space on two floors jam packed with cribs, strollers, diapers, gadgets and gizmos--that's where we were.

We got a chance to catch up with a lot of our favorite vendors, including Moby Wrap, Ergo, Beco, BumGenius, Thirsties, Babyhawk, and Green Toys. Sarah from SoftBums (yeah SoftBums!) was there for the first time, too. (Although on the day we were there the booth next to her was using a large, mostly naked Sumo wrestler to demonstrate their diaper rash cream, which was somewhat distracting.) We got to see lots of new offerings from many of these companies, several of which will be arriving in our store soon.

There were a whole bunch of new cloth diaper companies on exhibit, which was incredible. There must have been 24 different companies where just a few years ago there were only 2 or 3. Cloth Diapers are really reaching mainstream proportions. We have quite a few choices for new products to add, but we'll probably need to greatly expand our diaper section first--a project which is already very much in the works (more later on that.)

Like last year, there were quite a few "green" vendors, some of whom understood the concept better than others. We asked one company what kind of plastic their product was made with and they said "um...plastic plastic." One the other hand, the rep from another company had a whole report on the low estrogenic affects of his baby bottles versus other similar products, complete with cell growth data. We'll probably be ordering from him.

As always, the Bad Idea Fairy was busily at work this year. We saw a motorized stand for an adult to stand on behind a stroller that propels both adult and stroller (so, who's getting any exercise now?). We saw a special bag designed to lower a baby out the window of a burning building (this might be something we've neglected to worry about so far). And, although we love babywearing, we're not sure about Kindergartner wearing. Yes, there was a contraption designed to carry a 5 year old on your back, standing on a small platform near your waist. It looked somewhat uncomfortable.

All in all, we had a great time. It was a pretty intense 2 days, but we really enjoyed talking to our suppliers and other shopowners. And, next year the show is in Kentucky! See you later, Las Vegas!