T w e n t y S i d e d
Time gets the better of our couple for a good while. The year they renovate the new entryway, ‘taking a month off’ turns into six months, turns into a year, turns into things just feeling normal. Logan hits double digits, the big one-zero, ten years old, and it’s like Michael and Kelly blink in unison, and realize all at once how much time has passed. The ‘bookstore’ portion of their house has turned into an accidental playroom. The weird open floor plan upstairs just became a big living room, and they’ve forgotten to do the next steps.
The year is now 2010, and the question of if a bookstore is a good idea crosses both Kelly and Michael’s minds. The conversation they have about it is awkward and clunky, because each thinks the other is going to shoot the idea down. Surely, their intelligent and loving partner isn’t going to swing for the idea of a bookstore when the demographic is clearly turning to digital media…
Once they both realize this though, it gets much easier. Neither want to open a bookstore for money, they want to do it to honor Lorretta, and have the experience as a family. Michael works remotely for his job, and offers to run the place since it’s going to be quiet anyway. A doomed business is a problem for someone getting into business for profit, but the couple get their income elsewhere, and are willing to pay the cost of having somewhere to be proud of.
Luckily for both of them, abruptly realizing two years have passed is a great motivator. It’s time to make the ‘bookstore’ a reality. They apply for a business license and start the process. Kelly takes Logan to thrift stores, IKEA, antique shops, furniture outlets, anywhere to find the shelves they need to make it work.
IKEA and thrift shops both get a pass as options, but even Logan is old enough to know that antique places were a mistake. Kelly and her son leave with their tails between their legs and color drained from their faces as they try to fathom who has $15,000 for a bookshelf.
They pick up bookshelves everywhere they can for months. Logan and his mom go yard-sale shopping twice a week to find good deals. They put their family board games in the bookstore to rent, and they get a few DVDs in hopes of making things more current.
The chairs around the table there are the very same ones Lorretta painted for the dining room when Logan was a baby. They’ve settled on selling books, but also movies, and hosting game nights. They settle on a vision of a sort of public living room. They set up a policy where there’s no penalty for just sitting and reading a book without buying, but there is a jar available for donations, which they encourage for people planning to stay longer than an hour. Board games can be rented and played in the store for just a dollar, and they set up a little coffee station for guests.
Setting up a business license is somehow both easier than they expected, and harder. But either way, they open their store ‘Lottie’s BookNook’.
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Maybe it’s because I tend to look at small items, but I always found antique shops to be a place to get random stuff for almost shockingly cheap. I wonder if that differs place to place.
… or it might be the “random stuff,” I never really looked into getting decently functional furniture there.
Either way, that took longer than I would’ve expected to set up, but here’s hoping the book shop works for them!
It’s like stamps – you can get 100 stamps for a dollar, or you can pay twelve hundred dollars for a single stamp. It really depends on the specifics.
If you’re actually going to use it for shelving in a store, then paying for a genuine whatever in prime condition is a mistake. It certainly isn’t going to keep its value.
Fair enough! I guess when it comes down to it I’ve just never paid that much attention when browsing for interesting garbage.
Oh, that’s really nice! I’d like to go there….
Well: That table is much to small to play board games that exeed the size of shoots and ladders. Even for 2010 board game standards the space would have to be tripled. And now: Each player would need one table of their own just to fit a Wingspan player board.
For kids, I imagine an attempt to play board games would wind up just taking over a section of the floor. Which would reduce the number of people who could reasonably play board games there, and take up more floor space than anticipated.
Depending on how often people want to pull out a game over sit down with a book and some coffee, that’s the kind of thing that could definitely necessitate some more furniture.
So, there’s a bookstore that I have gone to a few times. Reiter’s Books in DC. It’s a small shop run by people I don’t know well, but seem like an interesting eclectic mix.
And it would have gone bankrupt years ago (Or so the owner told me) if the wargaming and boardgame crowd didn’t suddenly start using it and they didn’t start selling some of that as product on the side.
My kiddo just turned 10 and this is beyond true. In my head she’s still, like, five.
Can happen even with more distant relations. I swear, last year my cousins were in diapers, and now they’re graduating high school.
Ooh that’s a lovely place they’ve created!
I remember a decade ago discovering the first board game cafés (UK) and comic book cafés (Belgium)… It felt magical each time :)
I hope this plan plays out for them, unfortunately I fear “and they all lived happily ever after” may not be an option