Week 1: Day 3

Today was a pretty crazy day. There were a few short periods of down time but we had lots of people in the store.

The first ones I met were our 2 other High school interns. I kept them busy by having them touch up some furniture, arrange a messy section of the Materials library, take out the trash and then I had them both go to the Remnants room to continue going through the left over fabric and take out the small pieces.

Today I learned how to place a fabric order. I ordered some 'faux leather' as my boss calls it - (aka PVC/vinyl. It's amazing what you can do with vinyl now. Last summer at the VA I chose some Paul Brayton vinyl (it's made of 100% nylon and some of the lines are soft like leather) for the new Main Lobby seating and loved it.) Today I ordered 2 yards of RM CoCo vinyl which is going to cover a headboard.

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone today talking with different reps. I needed to get some SeaBrook Wall paper samples sent to us, then the whole fiasco with the new lamps. We had ordered some lamps and they are beautiful ... but missing a piece. So we got two more lamps... one of the other interns and I went to put it together.... same problem! It's a 3-4" piece that should screw into the upper portion of the lamp.. without it the main structure of the lamp doesn't connect together. Very nice rep though so hopefully we can get things sorted out!

Within the next week or two we are going to have a couple of large furniture deliveries coming in for Colonial Court, and an order of art for a client - so I got to call the companies and see where our shipments were at. The furniture was in Dallas, and the art will be shipped out tomorrow. Good thing I got used to talking on the phone and calling people I didn't know while I was on my mission - I am putting those skills to good work here.

Hopefully next week, or the week after I will go to an install with one of the designers. It should include putting together some tables. I helped our designer pick out some accessories from IMAX. It will be fun to see everything come together. She showed me the pictures from the City Creek Condos that they finished up today. She was there with the photographer. Pretty classy. I approve. :)

We had two reps from Jaunty come and talk to us. They sell wool rugs. They are private label so their logo isn't all over the place.. and a couple of years ago they decided NOT to be on the internet. So that can be a disadvantage for the consumer.. but for the retailer it is great news as your customer can't go out and buy the rug you are selling in the store anywhere else. They are some pretty high quality rugs. All their rugs are 100% 'live wool' meaning that they get all their wool from live sheep that are sheered and then 'put back out to play' as opposed to deal wool which is taken from sheep that have been killed for other purposes (like meat for example) then their wool is taken for rugs. Apparently some companies use all dead wool, or a combination of the two. So there you go.

Tomorrow I will get to meet another one of the designers so that should be fun :)