The chocolate shop is done!
been done for months.....
BUT they
(Fleurir Hand grown Chocolates) are having their official grand opening on October 22, which you can read about
here, and come check out in person. You won't be disappointed.
Ok, back to the shop. Last time I shared the progress it looked something like this, pre-bloom:

and now....
fleurir :)
All I can say is that Robert and Ashley are champs! Well I could say that they're pretty cute too....and gracious....and fun....and to be honest, they're kind of a bad influence...on my waistline...and language... but let's just leave it at champs. See?
The amount of work that they put into the shop was really astounding.
Almost every project I've worked on has been carried out with a team of pros, electricians, contractors, upholsterers, paper hangers, etc, but in this case Robert and Ashley (and their wonderful friends and family) were the heavy laborers from start to finish....
They gave me a huge file of inspiration, and I scribbled out a rough sketch of my vision...
And then the great search for the right pieces ensued. Lots of trips to Lucketts, salvage yards, barn sales, and the hardware store. Almost everything was found, recycled, or handmade.
And a couple things came by way of my home, like the awesome light that
I won from Ally's (
From the Right Bank) awesome
Christmas giveaway. Sadly, it's enormous size (nearly 4 feet tall) didn't jive with our 8 foot ceilings. I was so bummed (Rich was not...), but then as soon as I saw the chocolate shop space I knew it would be perfect. So in exchange for more chocolate than I probably should have consumed at 8 months prego, I offered them the light.
The other lights were fashioned from english wire garden cloches by genius Robert:
Now go eat some chocolate!