Starting Again – Again!

It’s been so long since I did anything with this blog that I don’t know where to start! Who was it said “at the beginning?” The beginning is way too far back for that now, but I will send little flashbacks into the past as I progress.

We really have been busy over the past two years updating the Gallery, giving the walls a fresh coat of white paint (25 gallons in total!!), demolishing a small room who’s sole existence seemed to be to gather junk, and moving another wall back a foot to remove a totally useless jog and make that room bigger. Outside there’s a new roof, new windows and a lovely new deck with a pew for the gentlemen to sit and enjoy the view while their women shop – am I being sexist? Probably!
We have many new artists being represented in the Gallery – Kathy Haycock has joined Joyce Burkholder and Linda Sorensen which means that we now have all three of the Wild Women of Wilno on our walls. Hilkka is here with her board paintings as well as some amazing original oils. Anyway, check out our Artists page to see who all is here in Wilno…….

Buy Canadian!

The following showed up in my email this week … I lay no claim to writing it, .but as the Gallery does not, and will not offer any craft made offshore, I thought I would include it here.  We have so many talented craftspeople here in this country that need our support. I am proud to say that the Wilno Craft Gallery does support them.

What would happen to our trade and economic growth if we all bought Canadian??????? A physics teacher in high school, once told the students that while one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn’t slow a train very much, a billion of them would . With that thought in mind, read the following, obviously written by a good Canadian. Good idea . . . one light bulb at a time . . . . Check this out . I can verify this because I was in Lowe’s the other day for some reason and just for the fun of it I was looking at the hose attachments . They were all made in China . The next day I was in Home Hardware and just for the fun of it I checked the hose attachments there. They were made in Canada. Start looking. In our current economic situation, every little thing we buy or do affects someone else – even their job. So, after reading this email, I think this lady is on the right track . Let’s get behind her! She said: My grandson likes Hershey’s candy . I noticed, though, that it is marked made in Mexico now. I do not buy it any more . My favorite toothpaste Colgate is made in Mexico now. I have switched to Crest .. You have to read the labels on everything . This past weekend I was at Wal-mart . I needed 60W light bulbs . I was in the light bulb aisle, and right next to the GE brand I normally buy was an off brand labeled, “Everyday Value. ” I picked up both types of bulbs and compared the stats – they were the same except for the price. The GE bulbs were more money than the Everyday Value brand but the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that GE was made in MEXICO and the Everyday Value brand was made in – get ready for this -in Canada in a company in Ontario. So throw out the myth that you can not find products you use every day that are made right here . My challenge to you is to start reading the labels when you shop for everyday things and see what you can find that is made in Canada – the job you save may be your own or your neighbour’s! If you accept the challenge, pass this on to others in your address book so we can all start buying Canadian, one light bulb at a time! Stop buying from overseas companies! (We should have awakened a decade ago . . . . . . ) Let’s get with the program . . . . help our fellow Canadians keep their jobs and create more jobs here in Canada. If President Obama insists on a “Made in America” policy, which is commendable of him to support American workers, we should do likewise. BUY CANADIAN! Read the labels. Support Canadian jobs.

Tomorrow is June 1st … where has the time gone??

This morning it snowed hard for about 10 minutes – long enough for me to run outside and get my plants into the porch so they wouldn’t be traumatized and, of course, it stopped snowing and the sun came out!

We are now open again – 7 days a wwk 10.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m.

Renovations coming to an end!

Yes, we are still renovating but we can finally see the end!

The front of the gallery is almost done, there’s just odd bits to do like some baseboards here and there, a couple of shelves to make, and odd bits of paint to fill in.

Today we started working on the back.  Carl filled nail holes and I washed walls  so that they are now ready to paint. This afternoon Carl took the jog in the east wall apart and  took away the sides, then he rebuilt the front so it will fill in the hole. Tomorrow it goes into place and our “little gallery” will be defined.

The electrician has been here for 2 days and has the lighting done in the front of the gallery, he won’t be here now until Wednesday or Thursday and I know he will get the lighting for the back done in that one day. I think we will be ready to put our displays into place right after Easter and we WILL open on time.

At the counter

This picture was taken last December before we started tearing things apart – the doors behind us have gone, along with the wall that was hosting them!

What are we doing?

What are we doing? Well, sometimes we wonder that ourselves but what we’re doing is renovating!  We began last Autumn by demolishing the ceiling under the front porch and putting in new wood (still not completely finished), we painted the posts white and the curlicues a bright yellow – it stands out!  Next was the roof, we had thought of red tin but decided that the cost was just too much though we have decided to go with a copper coloured tin on the front porch roof.  That hasn’t been done yet, the roofer delayed a little too long and lost the weather but hopefully it will be done before our “Grand Re-Opening” in May.

In January the new windows went in. The old windows were partly single-pane and very draughty but we wanted the new ones to look like the old ones as much as possible. Bonnechere Windows did a great job and the new windows are beautiful and look very much like the old ones …it is so much warmer in the gallery now!

Within a month of moving in I (Carl wasn’t here yet)  knew I wanted to take out the wall behind the front counter and the tiny room behind it which was a great catch-all for everything. Carl did the demolishing in late January and now there is an amazing feeling of light and airiness. It has really opened up the Gallery and given me a space to put my rug loom.

Carl has also been narrowing the counters that ran around the outside walls, removing the doors underneath them and putting in shelving instead so now we have an extra display area that wasn’t there before with a bonus of more floor space around the room.This morning we are going to wash walls and hopefully, before the day is out we can start painting the undercoat on the ceiling. We have bought 23 gallons of paint as well as some clear varnish for the counter tops and the floor.

This is just the front of the Gallery … we have yet to work on the back!  Check in again soon to see where we’re at.
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In the beginning …..

I was surfing through MLS listings in Renfrew County in November of 2007 and saw that the Wilno Craft Gallery was for sale but when I read the stats for it, I saw that the living room was listed as being 5.5′ wide by 25′ long!! I thought it must be like living in a bowling alley and I left it at that. In March of 2008 I was again looking through the MLS listings and saw that the Gallery was still listed so I emailed the realtor, Pam Ogelsby, to ask if it really was still for sale. After a few emails and phone calls, Carl and I, decided to fly down and take a look at it for ourselves – and we liked it. Before we left for home (Winnipeg) we had made an offer.

On the 23rd April we flew to Amsterdam for the start of a 5 week holiday that covered Amsterdam, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales where I was born. Making a long story shorter, we signed the final papers for the purchase of the Wilno Craft Gallery while we were in County Clare, Ireland.

We flew home to Winnipeg the first week of June, which was when I realised that we had less than 5 weeks before we took over as owners of the Gallery on July 11th. We had a house to sell and Carl gave in his notice as E.D. of The Manitoba Lodges and Outfitters Association but would have to work until September so it would just be me that would move in July. The move was fairly uneventful, a huge U-Haul jam packed full and towing a trailer with my car sitting on it and our cats, Hamish and Owen, sitting in the car. The cats were good travellers but I worried what I would do with them in that time between arriving in Wilno and being able to move in to the Gallery. Constance and Rob came to the rescue, allowing us to unload our “stuff” and the cats into upstairs; they also fed and watered them for the 5 or 6 days before the lawyers allowed us in. A big thank you also goes to Pam Ogelsby and Ken Ramsden for putting up with us for a couple of nights!

When we finally got in I had a few days to familiarize myself with the artists, artisans and crafts in the Gallery before Carl left for Winnipeg on the 14th and there I was …. on my own for the next couple of months – but that’s another story!