More warehouse love

My sister has offered to drive from her place to the warehouse to be the first to check it out in person.

It's potentially iffy.. our research into the background of the warehouse shows 2 owners from 1929 until 2006, then it was sold from a family trust to a investment group who has refied 4 times in 2 years. Possibly a distress sale. Might be good. Might be bad. Depends mainly on whether they have done any improvements or if they've been unable to take care of it.
We'll see.

We have 2 different couples as potential permanent on-site care takers if we buy something closer to the coast.

Had a great conversation yesterday with the in-store decorator for a largish dept store chain who has been tasked with revamping their store's look. Feeling good about some of the decisions we've made on the direction of our own shop. I keep seeing all these stores in Austin just suffering with same ol same ol.. this economy has not been great for a lot of people. Fortunately Austin is WAY better off than a lot of other areas.

Today we got a chance to check out Restoration Hardware's attempt at "industrial" style in person. I just haven't been driven enough to bother looking at it until today, the catalog images are enough to tell it's 'just this side of wrong'.
IMHO it's very Disney, the believability is just not there.

It's the best examples of "soulless reproduction". I liked the search lights from across the room, but up close the louvers were over polished, the castings were way too thick and the movements were slow and clunky. Epic Fail.
They might have European designers knocking the designs off but the production quality is third world at best.