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Todd Cymrot (left) helps his brother-in-law Paul Cymrot paint new bookshelves in the downstairs of Riverby Books. |
Riverby Books will soon have two display windows instead of one for its quirky signs.
The used-book store in downtown Fredericksburg will expand from its second-floor digs at 805 Caroline St. to the first floor and basement by early April. A Place in Time, a gift shop that used to occupy those floors, has already reopened across the street.
"All of those spaces became available at the right time," said Paul Cymrot, who runs Riverby with his wife, Emily Cymrot. "A space that was an improvement for them became available at the same time we were ready to stretch our legs. It's something we've long wanted to do."
The store is closed while renovations are being completed.
The revised Riverby is being painted in sunny gold and a warm Tuscan red. It will include 35,000 to 40,000 books, which is about five times as many volumes as the store had carried. This will allow the Cymrots to expand some categories and add others.
"Basically, we didn't have enough room before to have a big selection of everything," Paul Cymrot said. "We had to pinch some sections."
The shop also will have an art gallery and a bookbindery that will do repairs, make blank books and craft handmade boxes to preserve old books or impersonate them on bookshelves.
"We'll also be making marbled papers and things like that," Cymrot said. "We'll be keeping the book arts alive."
Riverby got its start 10 years ago when Cymrot and his father, Steve Cymrot, began collecting and buying used books at auctions and selling them at an antiques mall on Caroline Street.
They moved the business to its present location the next year when Collectvs, another used-book store, closed. At the time, the majority of their books were histories, mainly about the Civil War.
"Those were our biggest sellers," Paul Cymrot said. "We tried to stock the shelves with what people were interested in finding."
Their store did well, even as many other independents folded in the face of competition from such chains as Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million.
"The more books that they sell, the more books there are in the world," Cymrot said philosophically. "That means more people will start shopping in used-book stores."
Gently read best sellers often wind up on Riverby's shelves a few weeks after they were sold new at a chain bookstore. And they'll have a cheaper price penciled in the flyleaf.
Cymrot typically charges $5 to $7.50 for fiction by such best-seller authors as John Grisham or Dan Brown of "Da Vinci Code" fame, for example. That's about a third of the normal full retail price.
"Unlike Borders, we don't have 50 copies at a time," he said. "Almost all of our books come from people who are clearing off their shelves. There are people who bring them in by the armload; that's where we get the best things."
The Cymrots also scour auctions and estate and library sales for books to sell in their Fredericksburg store, in another store they opened on Capitol Hill in 2001, and on eBay.
Both stores are doing well, even though they draw different clientele, Paul Cymrot said. Washington customers tend to bring in brand-new books for resale, for instance. Those in Fredericksburg usually bring in older ones.
"We shuttle them back and forth," he said.
Cymrot said he envisions the Fredericksburg Riverby as being a cosy spot for readers when it reopens. He wants customers to feel comfortable bringing in a cup of coffee, browsing the stacks and sinking down in a comfortable chair to read. He's asked Larry Hinkle, a Fredericksburg cabinetmaker, to design and build a reading chair for the shop.
"It's not a La-Z-Boy, not a TV chair, but a chair designed for reading," Cymrot said.
The store will have larger philosophy, gardening and nature sections, plus more art, crafts, travel and kids books.
"We're finally able to give some of these books the shelf space they deserve," he said.
Once the renovations are completed, the store will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
To reach CATHY JETT: 540/374-5407 cjett@freelancestar.com
