Pre-opening

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A new business venture will shortly be brightening up Catherine Street, while supporting local Limerick causes. Our soon to be refurbished warehouse is called ‘Lucky Lane’ and it’s right next door to Pigtown Hall (opposite Sage café) on Catherine Street. Our plan is to open a ‘pop-up’ second-hand store, alongside various arts and crafts stalls. We’ll also be displaying photos…

For those who are interested, here’s how the lane looked when we first got access to it. It’s taken a while to get everything cleared out.

Various leaks in the roof over the years have badly damaged many of the walls. But we are undeterred.

At some point in its existence, the floor was deemed too boring. The terracotta-coloured floor tiles were covered in glue, and carpet squares fixed on top of them. Then many years later these were ripped up and disposed of, leaving an ugly layer of latex adhesive. We soaked them in solvents and thinners, probably doing major brain damage (you can…

Tara and Mark Two have begun to organising their stretch of the lane. The plan is to re-purpose scaffolding boards into sturdy shelves for their wares. They’ll also re-do the colour scheme.

When we first arrived, our water supply came out of a black PVC pipe with a garden tap attached to it. The tap wasn’t attached to anything itself; it just sat on the floor. So we decided to get a sink put in. The plumber turned up with a basin that wouldn’t drown a mouse so we headed down to…

One of the most badly damaged areas of the building was the upper part of this wall, just inside the lane. Decades of damp from leaks had ruined the ancient plaster and it was falling off in chunks. We knocked as much of it off as we could but the threat of popcorn sized lumps falling off every now and…





Originally, our plan was to fasten wardrobes together with poles and use them to hang clothes. But the shop has plenty of wall space so we decided (yet again) to custom build a row of matching rails right at the end of the store, facing the lane. I’ve been told not to use the word ‘problem’. So let’s just say…

We needed something to stand behind and lean on while we chat to customers. A place to put a mug of coffee and a newspaper perhaps. As usual, we couldn’t quite find the thing we needed so we decided to make our very own counter. A few hours after picking up the ingredients, we baked this tasty little counter-top to…

Art for sale? Do you have artworks you’d like to sell? Paintings, photographs, ceramics, sculptures, screen prints etc? We have space to display and sell your work on commission in our downtown location. dave@luckylane.info 089 437 8240

Our new floor racks arrived.

In keeping with our ‘artistic’ decor, we thought we’d make our back room into something of a statement.

Open for business Photos: Ben Oit

Compare and Contrast  

I suppose it’s about time we got around to signage. We looked for some sandwich boards and shingles that would suit our peculiar aesthetic and (as usual) decided that to meet our exacting standards, we would have to create our own. Here’s the a-frame sandwich board for the pavement — we don’t know what’s going to be written on it…