It’s true what they say about moving – you never realize how much stuff you’ve got till you do.

We’ve been in the new location for a little over two weeks now.  All our primary systems are up and running. We are washing and drying rugs, repairing rugs, answering the phone and typing invoices. But it’s still much like camping out. 

Complications with the local permitting officials cost us two weeks of production, so everyone is running overtime to catch up. It is all working, but leaves no extra time for luxeries like putting the books on the shelf in your office or sorting through the truck loads of stuff we brought over from the old place.

One new addition at our new location is a large walk-in freezer (9’x10’x16’) for the cold storage of rugs and wool yarns. For now we have simply packed it to the ceiling with sacks and boxes of wool, slammed the door, and turned it down to 20 F.  We hope to be able to sort through it in the next month or two.

In the next six weeks we will be installing a 2800 square foot mezzanine (our blocking floor), making progress on sorting through everything, and preparing to host over 150 attendees for a week-long, international, wash industry conference in mid-October. 

Add to that the introduction of a new line of yarns we are developing for the rug restoration trade, a fall sale of old rugs and inventory in early December and maybe an opening party or two.  It all starts to sound like we are either very ambitious, or just a little crazy. Maybe it’s both. 

The truth is we have lots of other plans as well, but it’s too soon to talk about them. In the mean time our friend and photographer John Bonath has been roaming the building taking candid shots of us, documenting our struggle to make order of the chaos. There are two image galleries on our website showing the amazing construction process and our life at the new facility – Our New Site Under Construction & At Work in Our New Shop.  Click here for a look at how it’s going.  

We will keep you posted.

 

Main work area

 

East side of building

 

Rug restoration area

 

South side of building

 

Drying room

 

Rug wash room

 

Rug wash room

 

Office areas

 

 

Showroom and exhibition area

 

Stairway to second floor

 

The staff at Robert Mann Rugs