Behind the scenes...

On Wednesday, July 21st, Sugar Snap Pea finally opened its doors. At 4pm people walked in, loved the smelly candles and beautiful flowers by Charleston Stems and enjoyed the great event thrown by Yoj Events and D'lish cupcakes. Thats at 4pm.

24 hours before, the scene looked a little different. 4pm Wednesday marked a 3rd day, and a 2nd label printer mishaps. Neither would print any price labels, and neither would talk to my computer. I previously spent a full day trying to apply my "IT" skills. That led nowhere. Then 2 days in a row, I had IT folks from all over try to assist me as much as possible. In fact, up to 1pm on Wednesday, I still had IT folks trying to figure out what was wrong. Needless to say, at 2pm, I decided to make an executive decision to hand label everything. You should have seen the store. I had amazing people help me out. From moms, holding their babies with one hand and writing prices with the other, to people hanging "GRAND OPENING" sign which they glittered the night before ( anne marie rocks) to amazing interior designers going a step beyond their duties and hanging mobiles above my counter ( which were made by Way Way and are available for custom order)

So 4:00pm, we opened the door. Everything seemed fine ( minus half of the items missing their prices, woopsies) and then my phone rang. My dad wanted to wish me a happy opening and say sorry they couldn't be there ( currently living overseas...approx 8hour time change). Then my dad said, "hang on hunny, I have to get the door for mom" and here I'm thinking, "argh dad, I dont have time to talk, I have a half disastrous store to run". So while being on hold, I continued to organize the tissue paper. Then I glance at the front door, and walks in my mom and dad. Let me start out by saying that I dont cry...usually.

I get very upset when animals get hurt. I cry at cartoons when animals die ( or they just stop drawing them). However, I cried at an on-star commercial earlier that morning. So I knew, that seeing my parents, whom I haventseen since Christmas, was all downhill from there. Everyone was crying. My mom, my dad, and everyone who witnessed this great surprise. (If you werent pregnant at that reveal, I dont know what your excuse was:)

So that was just my grand opening first hours. The rest of the night was amazing. Jenna Daniels took some professional photos, which I cant wait to see them, and will dedicate an entire post just to them! Food was amazing, company was amazing, and best of all, I thank you for your great encouragement.

I've been looking forward to this day for awhile now. I now realized that the grand opening was just the beginning to it all. Here is to great stories and the years to come at Sugar Snap Pea!

cords...confusion...and count down

at this point they remotely logged into my computer, so all i could do was tissue paper bags

and the hug.....

with more tears...happy tears.

JUST A FEW DAYS AWAY!!!!

PLEASE JOIN FOR A GRAND CELEBRATION! emails went out and if you don't get an email in the next few hours and would like to be added to our mailing list, please email me: zhenya@sspbaby.com THANK YOU!!!

im not allowed to sleep there...

By my lease, Im not allowed to sleep in my store...but for the last week, I feel like I have spent more time there than at my own house, but if that lease said I can reside, oh boy, we would be in trouble. Oh well, I knew this would come, however, I didn't care to spend the last week painting and ripping up somewhat old floors (said she politely)

So to catch you up on whats been happening in the last week, as its been exactly a week, since I got my keys and lost my freedom.

Saturday we ripped the carpet ( again, HUGE thanks to BritNAY (she likes to be called that) and Nic) and then we painted. More like, they painted, and I cried. Then, they left me...and I really wanted to cry a lot. But I didnt. I just started to make matters worse with my painting.

Let me tell you about that....I HATE PAINTING. Mostly because I suck at it...and really, really do mean that. I am not good, I waste paint and it looks like ...well, not good.

So just please be kind, when you come to SSP , make sure not to make fun of the crappyness that is my painting, and just adore the cute product. Thanks :)

Speaking of product....items are coming in LEFT AND RIGHT. I know my AMEX # by heart and have been using it very frequently...sweet. So Im very excited to see everything in its place.

Wednesday, my friend Candice and I took a little trip to the sweedish land of cheap furniture. Ikea was great. We spent...good 6 hours, instead of planned 3. Yep, we're awesome. I look forward to putting all those fun pieces together. Because if you've ever shopped at Ikea, you KNOW things are needed to be put together from 1000 little pieces to 1 table. Im sure I'll be adding that to the list of hates...right next to painting.

Grand opening is still scheduled for the 21st, and its creeping up closer and closer. Im still missing 2 very important furniture pieces that are basically essential to the grand opening, so Im hoping they are just going to drop on my front step. I know what I want, I just havent found the right one...oh the story of my life.

Well, with that, Im leaving you with some before and after photos of the store in its current condition. Back to painting and crying.

pretty pretty floors before the hard wood and after the sad carpet went bye bye

We will be utilizing that arch so stay tuned for that change

aww look at those pretty pretty floors

oh that thing? thats just my store.

So some of you may have seen me run around like a crazy lady waiving my hands up and down...some of you have seen me asking for a bag to breathe in....many of you have seen different sides and emotions. All of you were lucky to witness at least one. For that, I thank you.

Its been VERY VERY long, standing still, if you will, 6 months. On friday I was given a key to my new ...ahem...sugar snap pea's new home! Thats right folks, sugar snap pea is happily moving out of my apartment and is taking over a beautiful space on Charleston's busy shopping street-- King street.

There are soo many of you that have been there for me in so many different ways, and I can go on for days and months thanking everyone, but I hope you all know how grateful I am for each and every one of you.

So since my goal opening date is July 21st--my moms birthday (i'm hoping she will find this cute and wont want an actual present ;) ) I had to hit the ground running, and let me tell you, the past 24 hours haven't been slow.

I know I mentioned earlier, that I wanted to share on this blog not just what sugar snap pea has to offer, but also, what steps I had to take, to make sugar snap pea into a reality. So stay tuned, business savvy people...or just people who dont mind my blahbing.

However, today I wanted to share about my last 24 hours. After getting my key around 10:37am friday morning,(if you're in charleston and need a great real estate agent, who will not think you're crazy for emailing him daily multiple times for 5 months..ok, who will not OPENLY admit that you're crazy, but has full right to think you are, let me know!!)

10:39am my friend Candice, or as I lovingly would like to call her, "when i have no words she explains me to contractors" and I layed out the store. ( I had about 489 pictures and ideas, she had to have several "talks" with me to make me come to some sensible conclusion)

I met with construction (aprox 12:30)

furniture builders (1:15)

city of charleston (3:45pm),

home depot( 4:45) and rushed home to throw an impromtu girls dinner party (5:55pm).

Today, started around 5:30am, when my brave friends Mr. and Mrs. Stockman showed up at my store at 6:00am for a little demolition. You WANT to be friends with these people. They brought everything you may want for a little fun game of "ripping out 20 year old carpet and painting 1000 square feet" of tricky space. Im pretty sure they have 1 of everything you may find at Home Depot and Lowes combined.

Our first project was to cover all the windows so that people would be intrigued about seeing something new and exciting going into a previously empty space. As we were covering the store, morning joggers asked us what is going in, and were happy to hear sugar snap pea's catchy name. Second, and very important step, was to get an AC guy to check out a potential moldy situation. Luckily we passed that inspection with flying colors and I can safely say that were good to go! ( once the gross carpet is outta there).

Per the lovely picture, you'll see my very well coordinated outfit for this great project day. I knew sorority flip flops would come in handy 5 years after graduating and well, who doesnt like to show off their 1998 bandana. (I haven't seen that thing since 98, I swear!) Don't mind the expensive leather gloves...better than touching the gross carpet (mom, I live in the south, please don't add gloves to my christmas list)

space available? NOPE! TAKEN!!!

Another brave friend showed up and sniffed some fumes and helped me make a grey wall look white and fresh. Thank you Bethany! While I wanted to do EVERYTHING today, 12 hours later I couldn't feel my right arm. It was time to give in and go see a tear jerker=toy story 3. I am happy to say I didn't cry....much.

So with that, I leave you with a picture of the space as it was this AM at 6. More painting coming up, a fun Ikea trip and of course, the beautiful new floors on wednesday! Stay tuned, July 21st is right around the corner!!!