Just about every day, people ask us about where we find our stuff. Sometimes I feel like the real question should be, “do you have a hoarding problem?” to which the answer is without hesitation, “YES!” But lucky for you, it’s not an illness where we want to keep it all to ourselves (this is how we rationalize it, don’t judge us). Seriously, the key to not crossing over to the dark side of hoarding is the ability to edit. It’s one thing to be the first person in line at an estate sale or to take the “I Brake for Garage Sales” bumper sticker literally (by the way, we don’t) but you have to always be willing to leave things behind. This doesn’t mean […]
Can I Take Your Order, Please?
Have you ever been behind someone in a line, that when asked “what would you like?”, they completely freeze up? They start making sighing noises and thinking out loud about possibly choosing this or that, when you are pretty sure this is a menu they have seen hundreds of times. When pressured with the question of what we truly want, does anyone really know? Since we’ve been revealing true confessions lately, I have another: we know exactly what we want and we love it when we can get it! Upon making plans for the shop, we began brainstorming about what we would want for the counter. We made a list of our pet peeves about store counters, gathered some inspirational photos, measured the space it […]
Serendipity
They say the meaning of serendipity is ‘a happy accident’, or ‘the gift of finding valuable things not sought for’ or even ‘a somewhat lame movie starring Kate Beckinsale and the adorable John Cusack’. But for us, it was just pure delight! Back in July, after the barn demolition, I headed south to Georgia to go to the merchandise mart in Atlanta to stock the store with new goodies. Chantelle stayed behind to begin and oversee the construction of the store. Now let me just explain something up front…Chantelle and I are stalkers. Not the creepy kind hiding outside your bedroom window in the bushes, just the kind where we constantly text, call and track each other down ALL DAY. It’s a skill, what can […]
The Ultimate Before and After
Have you ever dreamed of taking something ho-hum and making it amazing? Do you watch makeover shows and wish you could be a part of a big transformation? Have you ever obsessed about a project so much that you could just ‘taste’ it? For us, yes to all 3! But the best part is…we actually got to do it! After purchasing the building, we were pretty adamant about the store needing a wood floor. We were, you could say, obsessing! We had a vision and the interior of the building was just lacking. Don’t get me wrong, we were grateful for a clean ceiling, newer track lighting and undamaged drywall but the industrial carpet was blah and the whole place needed some magic. And then […]
The Story of Us
There’s a Taylor Swift song titled “the Story of Us” that I frequently dance around the kitchen to. It’s one of those tales where it starts out good and ends up bad, and no one can tell that tale better than T. Swift! However, I have a little tale of my own but it starts out bad and ends up good. It’s a little building in Williamston, Michigan that used to be dark and sad and lonely but is now happy and fabulous! It is the home to our new little adventure, Bungalow 47. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s just back up. Owners Jill Rinner and Chantelle Deimling had lunch one day. They hadn’t seen each other in awhile (had actually met about […]