Tasting Room Update #2
Throughout the cold snowy winter, Pete and I have been working on the interior of the bigLITTLE tasting room. With a little help from our friends, we have: ripped up parts of the floor, patched them back together, moved a header up for the new door, tiled, painted, and painted some more. The plumbing is done, the electrical will be done by the end of the week, the bar is built and we are on track to open this spring! We have a few more things to do inside: repair trim, swap out some doors, furnish the building, clean, more painting, and spruce up the place.
Outside the deck flooring has been finished along with the ramp that joins our landscaped access walk. We are eagerly awaiting warmer weather to finish a few other major details. We still need to affix rail posts and handrails, and build stairs to the lawn. We also need to repair the siding we pulled off of the house when we put the door in.
We are also now faced with the tedious yet very important tasks of preparing the look and feel of the tasting room for our customers. We are deciding how our tasting procedure will work, which glasses to use for sampling, what literature to provide to patrons, T-shirt designs, other merchandise to stock, what kinds of tables and chairs to buy, etc… This has not been an easy process, but Pete and I can say with confidence that it has been fun. We are very much looking forward to pouring our wines to the public in this space. As a matter of fact, we can’t wait to share our hard work with all of you!
We would like to thank the following (non-exhaustive) list of dream-team members:
– Dennis Coburn of Coburn Construction and my soon-to-be father–in-law. He has supervised the renovation and has been MVP on the project from the get go. He also touched up the header for our main entrance with a chain saw (see picture above)
– Architect Andy Rink for being our liaison with the Leelanau building department
– Mike Stone for building our badass bar, and other misc. carpentry repairs
– Matt from precision plumbing. Very precise
– Kevin Buhr of Buhr electric
– Doug and his crew at BTB Glass
– Our parents for helping us paint and for being awesome and supportive as they always have been
– Kristin and Heidi for their creative ideas, patience, and post-work meals
– Larry Mawby for being a cool guy and digging the bL Wines vibe (oh… and offering the former home that he designed to be converted into our new tasting room space!!)
~ Mike
So excited for the bigLittle team. Can’t wait to partake!
Looking forward to tasting all the BigLittle wines in your new digs. Keep up the good (team) work !
Mike and Pete so excited for you. Will stop in as soon as we are up there. Will send Sean in this weekend.
Thanks guys! Hope to see you soon, and we will keep our eyes peeled for Sean