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Sunday, August 17, 2008

T minus: two months

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It's the 17th of August today. The grand opening celebration in scheduled to start in just two months -- and we're opening doors to the public in just 7 weeks. What seemed like an eternity away is now shockingly imminent.

In the past week, the space has assumed it's final shape. The drywall team's work is complete and the interior is now comprised of primer-white, perfectly smooth walls.

Raquel, my designer and I spent four hours yesterday at the Janzten Beach Home Depot, getting the paint mixed. Special thanks to Paint and Customer Service Goddesses Laura and Becca for bearing with our outlandishly complex order. We bought 15 different colors and spent over $1,000 just on paint. Tomorrow morning, the paint crew gets started -- it will take them most of the week to get through it all.

This week, I also purchased the six television sets for the studios. We're going with a 50" plasma for the biggest studio, a 42" for the second largest and 37"ers for the rest. I jumped on a great sale on top-rated Samsung models at Fry's and got them below my budgeted price (a very rare occurrence!) Big thanks to my brother, Steve for helping me haul them around -- and to Scott & Saundra Lennartz for providing their truck for said hauling.

The signs continue to vex. I've decided on the style -- we'll be shooting for an internally illuminated sign using push-through lettering for the logo. Here's an example. Of course, ours will be the Voicebox logo and look much cooler. At night, it will glow similarly to the logo on the top of the webpage.

In other news, Raquel and I selected a sectional couch for the large studio: the Oregon Chaise from Dania.

Also, this week I plan on getting started on my hiring process. Staffing is the last big unknown for me -- I feel like I've researched everything else well enough to take a good stab -- but labor still makes me nervous. As usual, I'm probably over complicating it in my mind, so I'm just going to get started by writing up some job descriptions and seeing where that takes me. I'll run it by my restaurant-management contacts here in town for feedback -- I'd like to start posting ads the first week of September to give myself a month to get people lined up.

Pics are up. Click above or here to go.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Voicebox's first press coverage

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It's not much, but it's still an exciting milestone. A reporter from the NW Examiner met me outside the space a few weeks ago and did a 5 minute phone interview. True to his word, the blurb appeared in the just-released August issue.

Well hung

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We have boxes.

For the past few days, the Eliud's drywall team has been working hard to get the drywall hung. They're all done now and it's looking fine. Mudding and taping begins this weekend. Click the photo above for the pics.

The acoustic issues I was concerned about actually seem a bit better now that all the walls are completely covered. There's still some issues with echo, but I've found some inexpensive solutions online that should do the trick.

In other news, I'm getting ready to order the signs. The signs have been a source of frustration for me, since I'm very concerned about getting them just right. The trick is that Voicebox is located on Hoyt St, 50 feet off the main drag on 21st Ave. For customers approaching from the north, a large sign flat on the facade would be most visible. For customers approaching from the south, a perpendicularly protruding sign would be better. Making it more complicated is the large tree that sits in the middle of the sight line.

For the sign itself, there's tons of choices to make. Internally vs. externally illuminated? Neon? Acrylic? Size? Content?

Oh, and with a city historic review process that can take 70 days and fabrication times of up to five weeks, there's next to no chance that the sign will be up in time for the grand opening. Blerg.

Undaunted, we press on.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Getting stuffy

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Sorry for the lack of posts, I'm finally recovered from the ComedySportz World Championship that wonderfully devoured my time last week.

The open-wall plumbing, electrical, framing and alarm inspections are complete. Yesterday, JB insulation got started on filling in the walls.

Arriving at the space yesterday afternoon was an interesting experience. With the insulation up, the space is finally starting to feel partitioned. Light doesn't travel around, and sound doesn't carry either. I'm really glad we had Will, the electrician, install temporary ceiling light in each room. It's getting dark in there.

The good news is that we can finally start to see how the rooms will feel, dimension-wise. I was a bit nervous about the proportions, but they seem just right.

The bad news is that I think the in-room acoustics are going to be problematic. With the rooms sectioned off, sound doesn't echo through the entire space anymore. On the other hand, the in-room echo is now obvious. And it's going to be bad.

The hard floors and ceiling cause sound to reverberate repeatedly, as do the parallel walls. I saw this coming, but I'm scared that it's going to be a lot worse than I expected.

All is not lost. First, it's a lot worse in some of the rooms than others. Studio 4, the little one by the door, and Studio 5, the big one, are the worst. The others are pretty good and will probably be fine once we get some furniture in there.

For the problem studios, we have several strategies. After the drywall is in, we'll see how bad it really is and start experimenting.

Drywall starts today.

New photos are up. Click the pic above to go.