The Vintage Home Part Ten

Michelle at work!

What a journey we've had together! What we have learned from each other! It's been a spiritual journey together in which we've both been given a blessed opportunity to have that very special friendship with another woman. I've always wanted a best friend like Michelle! We challenge and push each other to strip off the next layer of our emotional, psychological coverings and with each diminishing layer we just love each other more and the trust builds beyond what I would have ever imagined! It's intimacy! I've known it with my husband and my sister Mel and now with Michelle. We both share journeys in very spiritual (but not religious) 12-step programs and we both know how much these programs have contributed to our abilities and mental health! Doing the store together was challenging for us both--fun, rewarding but nevertheless challenging. Michelle's so much better suited to it than I am--just the facts, ma'am! And that's a fact! I'm an introvert and while it did invigorate me initially, I did find that eventually it just exhausted me. Jug and I intended to step up and get her started but we all thought that I would be able to remain a partner longer than five months! But we navigated through this additionally challenging time too! We arrived on the other side of the partnership only loving each other more! Isn't that just amazing? So The Vintage Home is all Michelle's on paper but we both feel I still belong there! She runs much by me just to get my opinion and then she does what she damn well pleases! Just kidding, I'm just a sounding board. I love watching her and watching the store flourish. She's an astounding talent--truly she is, I know I've said that so many times but it's so true. She just has an eye and a style. And I don't challenge or question it anymore! I love you Michelle!!! Give you five to one odds that Michelle's crying right now!! She's such a softie!! And considering how much we laugh, a little crying now and then is okay!

Let me end this little saga saying that I know The Vintage Home is a fabulous store. Women love it! Michelle has congregated quite a following of very loyal customers that just love her. And more are added every week. The store is a success. That said, realistically, we live in Wilkes County. (Wilkes-By-God-County, thank you very much!!--this is a local saying Michelle and I have pondered over and wondered where it came from!) And Wilkes County, well, there just isn't the population necessary that's sees the vision; that "gets it" as Michelle says. If this store and Michelle were in, say, Blowing Rock or Asheville, well, she'd have ten employees by now! You know, especially considering the economic climate we're enduring, the store does extremely well. She's tough and she's tenacious and she has a ton of energy and I believe she'll stick it out and endure through the challenging beginnings. And it's beautiful to watch!

The Vintage Home Part Nine

Not much to add to these photos...just more good pics depicting the loveliness of the store....

The Vintage Home Part Eight

Vintage alarm clocks. Such a statement when grouped together like this. Love that lamp too!

An absolutely fabulously inspired pillow! Love it! Made by Michelle, of course!

Kim's favorite pillow! Kinda hope it doesn't sell...then I can buy it! That brings up an interesting point about retail. You hesitate buying for yourself the fabulous stuff because you don't want to take anything from the store that adds so much to it! Hmmm....I got a birthday coming up, Michelle...hint, hint!!

Michelle actually did not make this cute little dolls...they're handmade but I can't remember who she said made them. Just precious!

The Vintage Home Part Seven

Another vintage-y item Michelle makes: towels--with scanned vintage image (she scans it on the computer, prints it out on cloth especially made for printers) sewn on and then often adds a vintage button. Wahlah! Very popular too.

There's another post with a close up of that fabulous yellow pillow--my all time favorite Michelle's made. The framed piece beside it is new, just arrived this week as are the bird houses.

The Vintage Home Part Six

These are old vintage medicine bottles that we embellished with pretties--old lace, old buttons, etc. The woman's face and the frame are actually polymer clay pieces I made. They sell well too. Michelle, and occassionally me too, often make things for the store. She makes a LOT of pillows and we've lately been making aprons made using vintage tablecloths--hmmmm....think I forgot to take any photos of them! They've sold very well and Michelle and I planning an apron making day for this week.

A "paper wall". Michelle got this idea from one of her online retail mentors: Curious Sofa (I think). Don't recall the gal's name but Michelle devotedly checks her blog everyday and is so inspired by her. The paper walls Michelle has made have ranged from scanned botanicals to music sheets to vintage post cards. They are just fabulous and a great way to display vintage art and create a seperation in a room. Note more of Michelle's pillows.

The Vintage Home Part Five

All taken May 6th 2008--make note of all the pillows--Michelle makes these. She learned to sew as a child, her paternal aunts taught her. With her great sense of style and sewing talent--wonderful things happen!

Cottage style bed set with original finish. A great find.

The Vintage Home Part Four

Posts "Part Three" and higher are all of the store now--just took these photos yesterday, May 7th. The above is of the "Jelly Cat" line. Very cute, soft and snuggly stuffed animals for young and old alike!

I just love how the store dipicts old with new. These are more Jelly Cats and the figures in the old vintage basket are "Ugly Dolls". They're very squishable and kids love them.

Just beautiful! What great Mother's Day gifts! This is a Gianna Rose line. It's done very well in the store.

The Vintage Home Part Three

On the street front--Main Street, Wilkesboro the opening day.

Two excited and proud partners!

The Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting.

Michelle and Joan McCord around the time of the opening...are they pretty (and single, available), prime of life women!?!

The Vintage Home Part Two

Inventorying--tremendous task! It took forever! Piece by piece we catalogued the item, its cost and selling price. Then we purchased the Point of Sale program for retailers and entered each item in this program. It's a fabulous program for retailers with capabilities of generating many handy reports and also love how it will print out the UPC labels they are put on each item's tag. It was a lot of work but well worth it.

Course, Olivia helped too! Goes without mentioning that Jug was a huge help! Note--the sign of a true artist: Livvie has paint all over her!

There--see what I mean about how prettily Michelle can showcase the ordinary? There's the oval bowl I thought was so ordinary--Michelle filled it with ....man, what's it called....senior moment....that stuff you put around a house plant??? Lord!! Anyway with that stuff and shell-shaped little soaps and it was so fetching! Michelle wrapped this round table with burlap and then hot-glued moss! Just lovely!

Early store photo. That's the old world piece I mentioned previously that we sold the very first day open. It was an encouraging first day transaction!!

The Vintage Home Part One

I guess a bit of the story is in order here. I met Michelle Gann in June of 2005 while we were doing the extensive and arduous remodel project on our Moravian Falls home. I related to my friend Lisa Factor that I sure could use some help with all the decorating decisions, especially colors. One of Michelle's many hats that she can wear is manicurist and Lisa had met her when Michelle did her manicure. So I called her and she was an integral part of our remodel project guiding us so as to not make any major clashing errors! And a friendship was born!

Last year, in April of '07, Michelle and a friend decided to open a retail store on Main Street in Wilkesboro specializing in vintage old and new furniture and gifts. This partnership eventually did not work out and Jug and I just hated to see Michelle's dream dissolve. We stepped up and offered to help her get started feeling and knowing that Michelle's great talent, instinct, energy and strong work ethics just HAD to be given this opportunity! Michelle came to Wilkes via Columbia, SC via California and actually had a successful retail store in Columbia. So she was bringing experience to the equation as well. Believe me, Kim knew NOTHING about retail!!

Onward we plunged!! Full steam ahead!! We spent probably---hmmm....three weeks finishing getting the store ready to open which included repainting the walls. It's a large space and the project wasn't accomplished in a day! We "stucco-ed" the walls using sheetrock putty and a trial--thingy (you know, what you use working with cement!) and a spray hopper that is used to create the "knock-down" look on drywall and created a old-world, distressed effect. Then painted over this with a warm cream. Then glazed over this using the same browny-gray that was used on the walls in the back of the store--see above. We applied the glaze and then wiped it off so that the glaze remained in the depressions. It is so pretty! Just love it. In photo above Michelle is applying and wiping off the glaze.

Michelle had worked for the previous year at the Wilkes Antique Mall and had accumulated a good bit of inventory and it was a good start to filling the store space. We added to this ordering from companies that had merchandise that fit Michelle's vision and what we could find at auctions, flea markets, individuals and sometimes even yard sales. One fellow's junk is another's treasure! Michelle has such an eye, such style. She's taught me so much! The way she can arrange the most ordinary things and make them so pleasing--so appealing that you go--I gotta have that! I remember clearly in very beginning how I would be inventory-ing the many china and glass pieces preparing for our opening and think how ordinary this or that piece was and then be just amazed how she could display it so that it was SPECIAL!! I particularly remember an off-white oval shaped bowl that I thought, now who's gonna want this? Then I saw what she did with it! Humph!! Amazingly beautiful.

More preparing for the opening......

Notice the lovely piece on the left? Michelle found this one and when it came in, I was like....hmmmm....a bit too distressed for my taste and hoped we could get our money back on it. It was a European piece and Michelle could tell you the style--can't remember. But we sold it the very first day we were open!!! I ate crow! And learned to REALLY trust Michelle's instincts and vision.

Michelle and Joe Campbell, her friend, former employer and retail mentor! He's our retail comrade! Always eager to see Michelle succeed. As the store has evolved and Michelle has seen the trend, she has bought less high-priced furniture and more vintage-y gifts and maybe half the furniture in the store is Joe's from the antique mall. He has four enormous floors and it's jam-packed. He has a great business but often, it seems that when Michelle brings his pieces down they sell quickly because she showcases them so well. So it helps Joe and it helps Michelle!