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11th September 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Here are a few more pictures of the shop interior. The Penguin and Ladybird notebooks are available to mail order - they are £7.99 and £6.99 respectively. Drop me a line of you want one. |
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8th August 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! All stock, including the vintage stuff is now in and all priced up. I have just listed my second Vintage update, and the cabinet that houses the vintage items is overfull, so if you are in the shop and after something you hve seen on the website but cannot see in the cabinet please ask as some of the pens are not currently displayed. We now have a very mice Tombow Zoom 707 display, and all Zoom 707 ballpoints and pencils are £1.00 off in the shop - £19.99 instead of £21.00. |
23rd July 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE
SHOP! We now have all stock apart from the vintage pens in
and priced up. After a marathon day of shop dressing, here are a few
photos of the interior of the shop. Tomorrow I wil lbe labelling and
pricing up the vintage pens, then with any luck, next week will be back
to normal and I will be able to beging listing more vintage items!
About time I hear you cry! OK, so here are the pictures: |
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18th July 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE
SHOP! We now have some journals, all our ink - as well as 60
sample bottles kindly supplied by Diamine Ink so that customers can try
out a colour before buying it - and Lamy, Aurora, Coles and some Dupont
stock in the cabinets! We still ahve many more manufacturers to go, and
the bulk of our stock is due to go on display on Wednesday next week,
with the remainder going in as soon as the orders arrive from the
various manufacturers. As we are bothin the shop every day from now on,
we are opening kind of - from about 10:00 to 15:00 at the moment - so
if you are in the area, please do drop by and see how things are
progressing first-hand. Monday is going to be a pricing-up day, when I
will attempt to label all the pens so far on display with their price
tags. Tuesday I have to drive over to the suppliers to pick up a large
box of stock, and on Wednesday, said supplier is due in the shop to put
it all out on display for us. Meanwhile, I am expecting orders to come
in from Dupont, Conway Stewart, Cathian Leather, Lamy, Pilot and Laban.
We will then take stock to see if we have room for any more cabinets,
or any more pens! If you want to visit us ,the shop address is: |
15th July 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! I have finally remembered to take some interior photos of the shop. The first shows the counter area with the shelving behind containing all the various manufacturers' inks, and with a Lamy display on the counter. The second picture below is of our "generic" showcases, and the third is our Lamy display, which we arranged this afternoon just before leaving for home. |
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15th July 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Firstly, the shutters. What a palaver that has been! It took them 2 weeks to send someone round with a polystyrene cup of powder paint, a bottle of white spirit and half a lavatory roll for him to dab it on with, and what a mess! We told him not to bother in the end and will just have to live with the sratches. It looked worse after he touched them up! We have had four glass showcases delivered - that was last week, and one of those was a bit crook, so we had to have that taken away and another one sent out. Finally, on Tuesday, the replacement arrived, and that was, thankfully, OK. On Monday, we had the shelving behind the counter installed and even though the shelving units were "off the peg" it really does look good. The same people also brought my computer desk for the back room. Today, we had the counters delivered, and again, are very happy with the job done. I installed the cash register and arranged the Streamline credit card machines. We took a boot load of ink with us today, and Amanda spent a couple of blissful hours arranging it on the shelving. We have another bootload of ink to take tomorrow and that should see the end of it. After that, we will start getting the pen stock installed. Our next big delivery should be on Tuesday when we are picking up a shedload of stock, and then on Wednesday, we will be getting the showcases to put it all in - these ones branded and thankfully supplied freee of charge by the pen suppliers. As an aside, Amanda's ankle is now much better. The plaster is off and she is walking on it almost normally, so a big thank you to everyone who asked after her. We still hope to be open for the end of this month, and after this week, where we have made a fair bit of progress, I think we may be able to pull it off, even if we open without all the showcases brimming with stock, and perhaps a few spaces here and there on the shop floor. I have been meaning to take some more photos of the interior of the shop, and today I even remebered to take my camera along, but sadly, still forgot to take the pictures. I will endevour to remember tomorrow, and will upload some if I have time. Thankfully, I am now able to reply to e-mails from the shop, so service should be almost back to normal, though it will likey be another week or two before I am able to list any more vintage pens. |
3rd July 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! We had the shutters fitted on the 1st July - Wednesday - and the shop should now be pretty secure what with the shutters on all doors and windows and the alarm system. Although the shutters work well, there are some quite nasty scuffs and scratches to the white powder coating on the inside. The shutter company say they are going to fix that with some of the same powder paint that was used to coat them in the first place, and they are supposed to be coming round to do a touch up job soon. Today, we fitted smoke alarms, a bell on the shop door, and in the back room, we put up some cork notice boards and other doohickeys on the walls. The cash register arrived today, though it will be a couple of weeks before the counters are in as these are being made at present. Today also saw the arrival of our window display shelving, and again things did not go without a glitch as one of the shelves had been cut wrongly and was about 2mm too wide to fit into the brackets. We should be getting a replacement shelf on Tuesday. Amanda was busy putting some old bit and pieces on the display. Next week is going to be rather busy too as on Monday I am expecting a delivery of acrylic pen blocks, stands, and displays. Tuesday, we have the Streamline people in to install a credit card machine, and also we should be getting the first 4 glass display cabinets in. Interesting times! |
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29th June 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Well, work continues, though progress has slowed somewhat. Between the last update and this, we (mainly Amanda and her mother) have been labouring in the back room, getting everything painted and generally improving the appearance of the kitchen/work area behind the shop floor. I have been mending pens as usual, and trying to keep all the balls in the air as far as scheduling work (shutters, etc.) and ordering stock and shop fittings goes. A major drawback on Friday was Amandas little accident. She was doing some exterior painting work around the rear of the shop, when she fell off the box she was standing on. A visit to casualty later, and her leg is in plaster, so no driving or climbing for her for several weeks! The good news is that the shutters are going in either tomorrow or Wednesday (to be confirmed later this afternoon), so with any luck we can start getting some shop fittings in and installed within a few days. I'll post some more interior shots as things take shape. |
17th June 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Apologies for taking so long to update this page. Well, as you can see we have had the shop sign put up, and I am pretty pleased with it. That was Monday. Yesterday, we had the chap in to measure up for shutters for the window and door and we have had the estimate for that and are waiting to hear about when they can come and fit it. As you can see from the picture below, we had the alarm fitted today. It really has been a hectic week, but with any luck the worst is over, as I have a "normal" day at work tomorrow, and Amanda is in the shop to do some more painting in the workshop area at the back. The doggie in the window is called Digger. |
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14th June 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! No rest for the wicked they say - back to the shop to shift half a ton of soil from the car parking area to the rear of the shop. We should be able to get one ridiculously small car, and one normal sized car parked behind the shop now. Tonbridge Carnival was also on today, so with all the people we saw walking past the shop during the afternoon, I am glad we got the temporary sign in the window when we did. I am hoping a few people would have noticed it. Tomorrow the proper sign gets put up. |
12th June 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Not much has happened visually, but wehave been hard at work - honest! Amanda has been very busy getting the shop clean inside and out. We have put up a temporary sign as you can see, and the "proper" shop sign is due to be set up on Monday. Why is it that however many times you measure to make sure something is straight, when you are finished it always looks crooked? We are both somewhat heartened by the favourable comments from the local residents and passers-by who have noticed that there is some activity in the shop again. The telephone line has hopefully been sorted, and should be working sometime next week (fingers crossed). Next week should be a very busy one as we have signs, alarms, shutters, visits from a couple of pen manufacturer reps, and the Small Business Federation visiting. I also have to write some letters to the solicitor to get them into gear again. |
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10th June 2009 |
Andy's Pens - THE SHOP! Well, here it is. We just got the keys today and here's a picture of the outside. It needs a jolly good clean, but we were lucky enough to find a shop of about the right size with a small room out the back that I will turn into a computer/work room where I can "live", whilst Amanda, my wife, takes care of the customers. Here are some pictures of the inside. Totally empty at the moment, but the hard works starts now. I have multiple appointments next week to get a shop sign up, have an alarm fitted, and get the front window and door measured up for shuttering. I also have to arrange for some insurance, and get the phone put back on. I think the shop was an office at one point as it seems to have a CAT 5 network wired in and about 7 or 8 phone lines, so I will have to get a BT chap in to unravel it all and put one of the lines on so I can get a phone and a broadband router connected. That's tomorrows's job! |
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