Open House

Well, it’s time. Soon after undertaking the remodeling and renovation of the old Tillman House Restaurant to be The Monticello News office, I told all those interested we’d have an open house when we completed the project.

Well, as projects of this size go, we’re still not quite done…but we’re very close, and in fact have been using our “new” office since the beginning of this year. So, I realized it was time to make good on my promise for an open house.

Today is the day. I hope you’re reading this on or before Thursday, June 11, because if you’re a weekend reader, then you missed the open house.

I hope lots of you will come by and enjoy some refreshments and see our new digs. For those of you who can’t make it, I plan to take some photos and write about it in the coming weeks so you can see through photographs where we work.

Some have inquired as to how I ever got to this point. Well, we rented the old office all those years. And, the opportunity to buy this building—cheap—came available. I bought it. Then it was time to do something with it. In the meantime, knowing I had purchased this, my landlord sold the old newspaper building. The new owner said she plans to open a thrift store, but so far she is remodeling and spiffing up the old office space and landscape around it.

But back to our office. As some of you know, we dismantled and removed the old kitchen. It was not original to the building, and we needed the space for parking.

We turned the upstairs into a two-bedroom apartment. It is occupied, and won’t be open for viewing, as the tenants didn’t sign on for all that.

Downstairs, old patrons of the Tillman House will see changes, but will recognize the general space. The room to the right upon entering in now my office, which I share with Hannah, who only works part-time. Across from me is Susan’s office, and Jenny and Victoria share the back room where the coffee club met, and many important decisions were made.

We have a large break area where we used to see Ben [Tillman] doling out food and Cissy [Hulsey] fixing our tea.

But enough of this…come see for yourself. Or wait until next week and I’ll continue my description.