What’s New at Seasonal

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

by Dennis DiPaolo

What a great winter! If fuel prices had to double, this was a good time for it to happen. It really wasn’t that cold. Hopefully, your pool made it through unscathed. You may wish to take a look at it now though, so you can arrange for any necessary repairs before all of the contractors are booked up. I pulled the convertible out of the barn this week. I hope that doesn’t cause a foot of snow for Easter!

You’ll find a whole new traffic pattern here this year. We have a new entrance at the traffic light in front of the new Lowes. That’s the best way in if you are coming from Milford, and the best way out if you are returning to Nashua. Our old entrance is still in place; but you can only use it for right turns in and out. Although the Lowes is finished now, the other five buildings will probably not be done until fall. The plan is for none of this to inconvenience you now, and it should ultimately be safer and more convenient for you when it’s done. If it turns out that I am wrong, please tell me and I will try to fix it.
We’ve been busy this winter. Liz decided to make more efficient use of space in the upstairs warehouse by building custom shelving on the window side. That worked perfectly and we were able to move an entire department up there. While we were at it, we redesigned all of the display windows on the second floor. When Liz and Mimi did the first set a few years ago, I gave them a New Hampshire small-town budget (all volunteers, no money).

The backgrounds were Building 19 bed sheets hung on pool cover cable. Tell us what you think of the new windows. Unfortunately you can only see them really well at night. Can you find the Boston Terriers in a couple of them?

We also finished some decorating that Jeanne actually started last year when she painted flowers and a faux brick wall in the solarium. We added a sky to it this year. She painted and stenciled the bathrooms in a tropical fish motif (ladies room) and ocean motif (men’s room). We added lighted stars to the night sky in the hot tub testing room (they look so cool when you’re in the hot tub) and we’re adding a planter and flower garden around the big sign out front.

We upgraded our retail software and we’re working hard to get the bugs out before you all show up in big crowds. The goal is to get you in and out even faster. We’ve been preparing for this for three years now, and Anne-Marie did a splendid and highly stressful job guiding us through it. I broke down and brought in cable for our internet computers. It’s not as cheap as you would think—it’s 1000 feet underground. Now you can research vendor websites here in minutes. Did you know that you can do that here? There’s an internet computer at the Design Center in the middle of the store for you to use researching our (and competitors) products.