Thursday, August 25, 2011

In the beginning
















Since this is a new site dedicated to my book store, I feel it is only right to start out from the beginning and tell how I decided to start the store and what it looked like when I bought it. I hope I can figure out how to post more than one picture in the right order.


While I was still living in Nevada and thinking about retiring from my nursing career, I went into a used book store that was next door to the gym I was going to. It was one of those spur of the moment things. As I walked in I told the guy there that I sure wish I had a little book store like his. Well he proceeded to tell me how he could set me up as a franchise and stock books to get me going, blah, blah, blah. I went away thinking yeah, right I am not crazy enough to be a franchise and pay him monthly for something I could do my self.



So the seed was planted. A couple weeks later I ran into a gal in the grocery store parking lot, well I didn't really run into her! But she was loading groceries and had a dog in her back seat that looked so much like our Molly, a red heeler. So I commented to her about the dog and we got to chatting, found out she had a little used book store in the next town south of Carson City, and she invited me to come down and spend some time with her and she would teach me what ever I wanted to know. Since I was planning to move out of state I would be no competition to her. So that's just what I did. I made a friend and she taught me her system of selling books and doing trade ins. I took pictures of her shelving, measured, took notes, etc.




When we did move back to Missouri that next year, my sister and her husband had an empty building for sale in this little old town in SW Mo. It had been the old White Spot, a local watering hole for many years, maybe 40 years or more. Only about 500 square feet.




Well I took my savings that I had been contributing to from my 8 years working as a nurse in corrections and that was my seed money to buy the building and put a new roof on it. Later on my brother worked with me (or me with him) and we gutted the building, replacing all the windows and doors, insulation, wiring, plumbing, sheet rock, and shelving. Took out 2 stinking old bathrooms and put in one. Saved the little kitchen area and made it my office space.



So I will stop here and post a couple pictures of what it looked like back in 2005 when we started.


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