Crazy Plant Shop Update Finding The Right Space Set Up and Preview

Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome back to my channel. For those who's new, my name is Christian and I'm a crazy plant guy and I'm now a crazy plant shop owner. So for those of you who's been following me for a while, uh, you know, sometime last year I made a big decision in my life to quit my very successful corporate full-time job to pursue being a full-time crazy plant guy, which includes continue to make these videos for you guys at the same time, pursuing the ultimate dream of opening my own little plant shop here in the city of Toronto downtown. And I can't believe we're here. We are finally here. And I'm here to also share with you guys a bit of update on kind of what that journey looked like to get us here. And then we're going to do a quick tour of the space, give you guys an idea on the vision I have, maybe get some suggestions from all of you because you guys have been a big part of my plant journey and this is the next stage to it. And I want you guys to continue to be part of it as well. If you see this black thing flying around, there's a fly in here that I can't seem to kill the gut in somehow, but yeah, so during the middle of a global pandemic, you would think finding a space in downtown Toronto would be as easy, but it was definitely not as easy as I thought. There were a lot of places that we started to look at around like February. And even then I wasn't sure if I want to open up a plant shop here in downtown Toronto, or I want to go back home in Winnipeg and open one up there, which is my hometown. Eventually I did finally say, you know what, let's stay in Toronto. Let's open up the plant shop here. So around February we started to look for a place. I got a realtor, you know, kind of gave him my requirements, which was a really nice lighting, South facing preferred West or East next, definitely not a North facing window. I want to stay within a certain area of downtown. I want to make sure there was a nice big space to obviously house as many plants as possible. Have a little back area where we can have a few of the, you know, plants are acclimating. That's not going to be ready yet. Have enough space to maybe have a little lounge or maybe one day a coffee station there for people to just hang out, be surrounded with plants and good people have a basement where I can have storage, you know, good watering system, good location, all of that. So those are kind of the checklist and finding the right space. So once we kind of hammered out the wishlist or the requirements, you know, we began searching and getting some listings sent to me and going through each of them. There were obviously some that I wanted to check out and some that I just needed to pass just based on kind of what information was on that listing, the pictures that were presented. There was a lot of places we checked out. I think I probably checked out a total of maybe no, almost 15 to 20 spaces before we settled on this one. And there were some good ones and there were probably a lot of bad ones to be honest. Once that needed a lot of work and a lot of rentals few places that had great location, but didn't have like a finished basement store, a lot of stuff or it didn't have like a bathroom for customers. There was one that was really beautiful, all glass corner street and just beautiful lighting. You know, unfortunately it was a bit above my budget. So I had to also be mindful of that even though I really wanted that space. But in addition to it being over budget, it also didn't have like a finished basement. It had a basement to store things, but it wasn't warm enough for me to like put a grow tent out there or maybe a couple of greenhouses, even though the retail space was, it was an art gallery. So to me, I wanted to kind of create that like, Whoa, it'd be cool to create like a plant gallery, you know what I mean? But eventually I had to be practical as well. And I said no to it. There were a few interesting spaces, one which had like a dancing pole that had a few fake dollar bills around there. It was a little bit sketchy. We're like, yeah, we need to go. But eventually we found this space on Broadview Avenue, just North of Dundas between Gerrard's for those of you guys who's local. And I had a really good feeling of it as soon as I saw the listing and the pictures, it seemed to meet everything I wanted. It didn't have a South facing window, so it is West facing window. But I am learning now that I have a West facing window that they are probably better than a South facing window. You get tons of light. So I was really happy to kind of see how light changes as the day moves on. Thank you. It's funny though. Like I have so many people stopping by and just checking to see what's coming here. And I had a few people like, Oh gosh, I thought it was going to be like a crazy plant shop. So it really is exciting and it's cool because it's like people in the neighborhood and people who may not be active on social media or who's not aware with me, which is great because I think it's kind of catered to the local neighborhood, which I'm excited about. It is a great neighborhood. So that was also a win and a plus. In addition, the space itself, I mean, you guys can see right here how beautiful it is. Now when I first walked into the floors are amazing. It used to be a woman's clothing store before and a seamstress. So for me, it was a perfect layout where I can just move things easily, put some shelvings up and then kind of get the shop going. It also has like a nice finished basement. So, you know, it's a livable basement where I could probably crash here as well. And when I got the keys, I was so excited and I felt so proud that, you know, the dream is actually becoming a reality. So excited to just get going and start moving things. So, you know, first thing I did is kind of just, you know, touch up the walls a bit, patch up any of the holes, give it a good, nice, you know, paint job, just to kind of clean it up a bit. Again, the space was in really good condition. So very, very little things I had to do. We started to then put up some shelvings already that, you know, we'll have the plants displayed and we kind of did a bit of rearranging. Originally the checkout counter that you guys see at the back was over here on the side against this black wall with that lounge area next to it. The previous owners left this for me. So that was really nice of them. And I was really happy because it definitely reduces the additional costs I'm going to spend to you know, put up the shop. And I know there's a lot of people out there who still think I'm crazy to open a physical retail shop during a time like this. The reality is it is very expensive to open a retail shop. The operating costs is a lot higher than if you were to just run it in your home and doing online sales and just shipping. Obviously that has a lot more reach to ship nationwide and your operating costs is just very, very minimal. Aside from obviously having your plants, I could have also probably gone down the route of just maybe renting a warehouse if I needed space to do again online sales and shipping. But I really wanted a physical retail shop because I want to continue to build a community. And you know, with the last couple of years we've had, I feel like we've been deprived of having that community feel and interacting in real life with other plant people out there. So I really wanted a space where it was homey and loungy and comfortable where people come here and just chat and talk about plants, meet new people a place where everyone knows your name. Is that from Cheers? I think that's from Cheers, right? So I definitely wanted that vibe. And that is the reason why I went with a retail plant shop is because I love plants and I love interacting with other plant people and I want to provide a space where you know you can come in, be surrounded with great plants and just feels like you're at a friend's place. So that is the goal. With that said, I'm going to give you guys a quick tour of the space right now and kind of share with you guys my vision. So let's go. All right guys. So I put my little slide up there for now, but when you enter this space, you are greeted with this display window. So this is where I'm putting a few of the plants right now. We've got some alocasias, some string of hearts, pepperomias, cacti and some ficus lasticas there. And this is the space. So I did start adding a few of the shelvings already and you guys can see right here. This is where I have most of the plant shelves. I think I'm going to add a couple of the Millsbo greenhouse to put some of the rare gems in there that obviously need a little bit more humidity, but I did measure the humidity in the space. Regular is around like 55, which is great. So this is an empty wall where I'm thinking it's near the West facing window. I'm thinking we put a living green wall there. What do you guys think? Or maybe you should just do a couple of shelving. I really do want a nice backdrop for like pictures and hanging out and I am going to put a string of hearts there. I don't know if I'm going to bring the one I have a home or I'm going to make a new one, but yeah, so this is the area. I did move the checkout counter right there in the back because those little closets there used to be like change room. I think what I'm going to put back there is a couple more of the Millsbo cabinet or I don't know if I'm going to do the tall one, the short one and use as like counter space. But this is the lounge area that I have. So the owners were kind enough again to leave this little couch set and table with the checkout counter, but it has that nice black brick wall. So what I'm thinking is maybe we put some industrial shelving on either side, a couple hanging plants again, really creating a vibe in a space where people can just come in here, hang out and talk plants with me. I think that'll be awesome. And um, yeah, so I do have the checkout counter there. So I did start moving a few of my other plants like the syngoniums, um, some ethereums there, skindapses. And I did add a few more up here as well. So we got the dark form, syngonium, uh, elbow, um, pink splash. And yeah, so this is the checkout area and has this cool barn door. So now we're entering the back space where this is where I'm going to have a lot of, you know, my prep space. If I'm bringing in more plants, I'm going to be acclimating plants here. I'm going to move a lot of the greenhouses. I think I need to do a paint job. I might do a paint job still, maybe take that wedding shelf that they left there. And, uh, but yeah, it's a big enough space to, you know, have a little prep table here. I mean, make it into an office as well. So yeah, that is the space so far. And then we have a full, uh, finished basement, which is great. Um, maybe we'll do a different tour of it once everything is set up, but comment below and let me know what other ideas you guys think we should do. Um, I'm debating if I'm going to put some, maybe we'll definitely do a lot of hanging plants. I just don't know where. Um, but yeah, I really, really do love this space. So there you guys have it. That was a quick tour of the space so far. Comment below and let me know what you think. Should we put the living wall against this one? Or maybe we should move it against that black brick wall. Uh, there's so many ways we can definitely design this space, but ultimately I'm just really excited to fill this up with so many more plants and start having people over because that is really what I'm looking forward to. And that's the reason why I decided to go with a retail shop is really a place of community, a place where people can just come in, hang out, buy with other plant people. And uh, yeah, that's pretty much what I'm going for. So next time you see an update on the shop, we'll definitely do a complete tour when it's ready to have people over, you know, maybe you'll see that living wall, um, and we'll have to sign up and whatnot, but really excited to get this going. And again, thank you to all of you for being part of my plant journey. I'm so excited to share this with you guys. You know, this isn't just my plant shop. It's our plant shop. So really happy for you guys to be part of it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. Enjoy the rest of your week and we'll see you guys soon. Peace.