That our life for the foreseeable future would completely change.
We got the keys to our little shop on the 20 on Valentine's Day of 2015 so it has officially been in our possession for 1 year.
I thought it would be fun to go back and see how this shop started out for me, for Trevor, our family that have been listening to this rollercoaster ride and for our new followers that have only just found out about us in our great area.
The shop you know now did not start out looking as it does today.
our first viewing of the shop looked like a peach gone wrong office space with speckled black and white carpet. and it was freezing. the heat hadn't been on in almost 2 years but our minds were whirring with the possibilities.
we hadn't told anyone yet that we were thinking about it at this point as we didn't even know if we could afford to do this in our dream location of fonthill. sure the rent was cheaper lots of places like welland (where most business' struggle forever for some reason) or even port colborne but we knew where a store of our style needed to be.
we talked about it for almost a week before we shared the photos and ideas with my parents where i think i almost killed my poor dad with my rapid talk, ideas and everything that spelt out money and leaving the career i had worked so hard for. more than i will ever be able to share here.
our plain office space bathroom that to most should be just fine for a store space but i wanted more.
want want want it's an impossible hill to climb sometimes but with enough perseverance and planning it sometimes works out. not the way you thought in a million years but, it exceeds your expectations almost daily.
The first full day we had the shop I sat on the floor listening to the gentleman banging away at our furnace in the basement trying to bring it to life and planning.
planning first steps
planning parties at christmas
and feeling like i was going to puke
We spent the first weekend ripping out the brand new carpet much to the chagrin of our helpers who did not understand why I was removing perfectly good carpet. Sometimes it takes awhile to catch up to the plans in my brain [the squirrels as we lovingly dub them] but eventually the vision comes out and people can see it.
Then the floor fiasco that I suppose we can laugh about now but still should be close to a glass of wine when discussing the story as it was traumatic. My darling husband had to learn how to clean concrete, we have never been so worried about an outcome of something we did not know how to do and knew if we f-ed it up it was going to cost A LOT of money to fix.
We got it done after a week and then a week of drying and ended up painting the floor a bright shade of white which I still love this decision now.
We moved the monster counter I love and so many of you do as well in on a day much like this past weekend from Niagara on the Lake .
So many little bits and pieces fitting together, late nights between day jobs, setting up new accounts, crying, laughing and plain old excitement getting ready for our opening weekend.
March 17 I pulled the trigger and ran, skipped, quit my way out of the job that had plagued me mentally for 10 years and never felt so good.
And then it came, our opening day.
we started with all the vintage we had collected over the years and had little in the way of big displays that we have been collecting over the past year like our huge postal sorter.
The bathroom underwent a huge transformation. An inspirational place to pee while you shop.
Oh how things have changed.
As I was going through all these photos I came across a lot of pictures of picking trips and vintage hunts Trevor and I have done and can't wait to get some time to do that again. The vintage comes and goes so quickly in the shop that sometimes it feels like we don't have any to me. Don't worry though we're still hunting lots of vintage goodies with the new stuff.
OPENING WEEK [ABOVE]
[3 WEEKS AGO]
So that concludes our little walk down memory lane. It's been a hell of a year. We are ecstatic to say that this little venture has been working out splendidly and we are hoping to be around for quite some time.
Thanks to all our lovely customers making this dream possible.
Thank you to the man of my dreams who keeps the train on the tracks.
Thank you to the best employee managing sales associate full time squirrel taming multitasking ninja a girl could ask for in Jill.
Thank you to our friends and family for understanding when we periodically have to cancel or work through a dinner when things get crazy.
Have a swell day everyone
Meg
