The Space is Ours!

I am slowly working on a book about our business The Game Capital, and how it got started. This is only a rough draft since it is still a work in progress, but I decided to share some pieces from it here while I am writing!

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Dollar General Space

In late September of 2019, Jeff and I signed the lease for the Dollar General space and it was now ours! The Dollar General would now be turning into The Game Capital!

We got the keys and started work on finalizing our floor plan so that construction on the build-out could begin as soon as possible! This consisted of measuring out what we had on paper and marking the floor with blue tape so we could visualize better.

Layout

We had a layout that consisted of warehouse space (including what was already there), an office/streaming “studio” for Jeff, an office for administrative staff (myself and Store Manager), a break room, a large rentable room, and a small rentable room. We had a ton of open space for retail and play/event space, which we sorely lacked in our first location. We had decided against creating a shipping room because we could just set up workspaces in the warehouse for that. It saved us money and gave us more flexibility with space.

Walls Up!

Once we had the floor plan finalized, the walls started going up pretty quickly. As the walls were going up, we had appointments with contractors and vendors to figure out where power outlets would go, what carpeting and tile flooring we wanted, what we wanted the doors to look like, and so much more. It was almost as detailed as building a house, if not more so.

Decisions

Most of these design decisions fell to me. Possibly because I am a woman. Possibly because no one else wanted to make those decisions. I got Jeff and other staff members’ opinions and I did my best. People seemed to like the outcome, so I guess I did an okay job!