Getting Into the Clothing Business

Posted by Charles Mon, 26 Dec 2005 07:48:00 GMT

What we had was a lot of brick, exposed conduit, and a small awkward bathroom, and what we really needed was a comfortable, well lit place for trying on clothing. Armed with the experience of building the huge office walls, Berry went to work planning a 6 by 5 foot dressing room. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

This is where we began. Berry installed 2×4 furring strips to the brick walls to space what would be the slatwall and dressing room walls away from the existing conduit. The conduit feeds the neighbors shop, and as yet unknown areas of the shop, and we needed to tie into it to provide light in the dressing room. As much trouble as it was building additional walls two inches from the bricks, we felt that would be easier than moving the wiring, and the painted drywall would have a warmer feel than whatever we could do to the brick.

New to us was the 2×4 construction. That combined with the relatively short 8 foot walls, it was a smaller and faster construction project than we had anticipated, certainly than the 2×6 by 15 foot high office walls.

As soon as the dressing room was ready for paint, we were able to enlist the efforts of Nigel Ray and Jon Abernethy to help us build the other wall that frames the clothing area. This is directly opposing the dressing room door, and spans the 15 foot distance from floor to ceiling. This wall is only 14 feet long, and the four of us were able to build it out of 2×6’s on the ground and erect it in place in the same day. All this practice has increased our framing skills and speed.

The completion of this project marked the end of the really dusty work that will be impossible to contain. We still have a great deal of work to do, but can now begin to put merchandise out without worrying too much about covering it with saw or drywall dust. Passion’s clothing area will look much like this until we get our big shipments of Spring clothing around Valentine’s Day. We now adding a few things to our already good selection of Fox and Sugoi garments, and Harlot Wear is on the way.