Building A Shop Is Fun…Or Is It?

How do you build anything, let alone a Korean Temple at a Renaissance Faire?

Heather has successfully run her business here at the Bristol Renaissance Faire out of one of the most lavish, beautiful tents I have ever been in. The tent in-an-of-itself was a crowd-magnet and Heather worked her retail magic on it to make it more inviting and a better draw. But it was still a tent ; vulnerable to flooding, wind and not completely secure. It was also not in the ideal location. Since Bristol is Heather’s favorite faire that features her clothing line and she sees such potential here; we decided it was time to expand into a permanent structure.

Our choices were to BUY or BUILD

We looked around a LOT. I was hoping to buy a buy a pre-built structure. There weren’t a lot of spaces available to build what we wanted new and building requires immediate outlay of funds. When you buy a pre-existing building the seller usually takes payments. Eventually Heather set her heart upon one specific shop. She liked how big the display floor was and the building’s prime location. I liked that it had a huge, furnished apartment upstairs. One of the very few on circuit with most of the features we wanted both as a shop and as a living quarters. By the time we reached Carolina in 2013 we knew the purchase of the building my wife wanted was a “No-Go”. None of the other available, pre-existing shops met her criteria for size, location or features. We realized that we’d have to build. On a far more positive note – since the Elephant rides would not be returning to the Bristol Faire ever again - One of Heather’s dream locations opened up for her to use.

 

So we begin looking for inspiration for a new shop.

Heather had a laundry list of necessary features in her mind. She had very specific ideas for size and flow – but no real, clear mental picture on what she wanted it to look like. I knew; absolutely KNEW that I wanted a balcony and a very sizeable, useful upstairs. Eventually we will build an apartment or apartments up there and (if possible) even sneak in a functioning bathroom like in the booth we didn’t get. By building, it was possible to get something I really, really wanted and thought would be an impossible dream: A view of the little lake in the front of Bristol’s grounds. During our November trip to Disney and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in 2013 we saw a bunch of beautiful buildings we liked a lot. We had to discard some of them from consideration as our inspirations almost immediately because they were too elaborate or too hard to duplicate on our budget. I did notice a lot of recurring themes in all the buildings we liked. Each had wide, open trading floors, exotic, non-European designs and balconies. I wanted a BALCONY. Even though we (mostly) agreed on a design, and even floated it past one of our potential builders, Heather wasn’t really committed to drawing-up and finalizing the building so we could plan it out. We returned to Disney and Universal again this spring. Once again we scouted out buildings and designs we liked. We were still drawn to our first choice. We also looked for ways to make the design more easily achievable. Still Heather was dragging her feet in a way I have come to recognize. Whether she knew it or not – she had something else brewing in the back of her mind.

 

Heather has an EPIPHANY – It should have been obvious.

I came back from slaying dragons out in the wide world one day, I don’t remember if it was on a show day or if it was during the week - to discover that my excited bride had a selection of photos on her computer. She’d decided what she wanted to model her new booth after – A Korean Temple. Well of course! What says “English Renaissance” better than a Korean Temple? But my wife is an influential and powerful woman. She is not only persuasive – but the management of the festivals we work at have a lot of respect for her design aesthetics. She ran the ideas and examples by the “powers-that-be” and instead of telling her “no” they said “Love this idea, send us some drawings!”

 

So it’s one thing to decide on a dream, it is something else to get it built.

I have always thought of my marriage with Heather to be perfect – at least in some ways. She’s nicer than me. She’s far more charming, polite and personable than I could ever manage to be. She has an amazing eye for color and design.

I get shit done.

Now that Heather had narrowed the focus of the project down it was my job to find the person to make it concrete. Or in this case; wood. I scrambled here, shucked-and-jived there, pulled strings and tried to pin down some of my more elusive builder friends. As it turns out – Jamie who I usually do construction with wasn’t available. I remembered another friend of mine who used to be quite a builder; Marc Hudson. In a perfect storm scenario - when I suggested Marc to Jamie to check his references and ability, Jamie told me that he was just going to suggest Marc to me. {Addendum : As Heather was reading-over this journal before I posted it she corrected me loudly, clearly and more than a little ANGRILY. It was in fact HER who remembered her old friend Marc Hudson as a builder – Not me. I just did the necessary arranging} Marc had a full slate of summer construction gigs suddenly fall through because a casino in New York was proposing to buy the land that one of the two major New York Renaissance Festivals sits on. Even though the Casino management and the owners of the Festival had agreed that the show would still operate for years to come – maybe even indefinitely – many shop owners didn’t want to be pay for construction of a structure that might get torn down in two years or so. Here’s the best part – Marc is not only an old friend of mine – he is an old, dear friend of Heather’s too. When I told her that he was going to be our builder she all-but literally jumped for joy. The final few weeks of the Georgia show were a blur. I had to secure the builder (Marc) and have him submit drawings – drawings that he had to redo both to meet our liking and then something like six times to meet the festival’s shifting demands. I had to secure a MASSIVE amount of financing and then find some way to get that money into the Marc’s hands so he could buy lumber and materials. We had to secure approval of the Bristol management. I can take no credit for that; Heather was the wizard of that realm and we had to pray that there would be no rain or else our overly-time-constrained plan would fall disastrously apart. I wasn’t even sure if I would be travelling immediately to Bristol after Georgia to swing hammers as part of the construction team until right before the final weekend of Georgia. But as I wrote before – it all came together.

 

While we were enjoying a trip to Kansas City Marc dug in and pounded away

It was a little weird, a little terrifying and very exciting to get Facebook updates from Marc after each day’s construction. I believe he built this whole amazing shebang in just over three weeks. There were some Looooong days involved and by the project’s completion Marc was only capable of mumbling “tired” as he swayed, glassy-eyed back and forth. But he got it done. He even managed NOT to crush my head when, after he finished putting in the first of the posts you’ll see in the photos below, I sent him a message jokingly asking if he could go ahead and move the whole thing eighteen inches to the right!

 

As soon as we got to Bristol on that Saturday afternoon we bee-lined over to see our new booth!

You know I could write a whole bunch of cutesy descriptions of all the last minute scrambling and late nights that Marc – and Heather, and our “adopted, grown-up daughter” Meggy put in getting the shop ready to open for Bristol’s First day this weekend. In fact, I kind of DID … They’re written down in all the photo captions to follow. I will tell you that Marc finally quit, loaded-up his truck and left on Friday night at midnight. Heather –n – Meggy worked another hour or two past that into Saturday Morning. The building inspector was playing hide-and-seek throughout the build. He was never around when we needed him and when he did show up it was to spout some crazy, arbitrary change or modification which only served to slow down our progress. I was the perfect house-husband in all of this. Sometimes I went to fetch supplies or fixtures. Sometimes I chipped in to help move, lift, tote or advise. Mostly I took care of the house, the child and the “machinery” of our day-to-day life. I feared Marc wouldn’t be able to finish in time. So did he. But he pulled it off. I never doubted that Heather would make it look beautiful and professional and inviting. Of course she did. She’s Heather.

So let me invite each and every one of you to visit Nomadic Dreams Gypsy Boutique at the Bristol Renaissance Festival.

There are still a few things to complete this year before the project is really done for 2014. The shuttered doors are being hung on monad and Tuesday. One of the arbitrary requirements dictates that we have to put in rails on both sides of our ADA-compliant ramps. So be it. Next week we have to drywall the downstairs ceiling for fire code and your little author is going to get his first experience hanging sheetrock. Sigh. Next year - time and fortune permitting - we’ll finish the upstairs and some form of apartment. In a perfect world we’ll add a second tier to the roof making it look even more like a pagoda or Asian temple. Still we’re dammed proud, damned happy and really, really tired.

Now all of you come buy LOTS and LOTS of beautiful things so we can pay for this Giant Freakin’ Building!!