A Peek Inside

(pics by the sneaky and talented Merly)

The Edit is only about 250 square feet. There mayyyy have been a few nights that I lay awake stressing that the space was too small and that it would never work but lo and behold, once we cleaned out all the construction mess and got a little bit of organization happening, it turned out to be just right. Like Baby Bear's porridge... just right. Would I love to have a bigger space one day? Sure! But I need to take one step at a time, especially since I'm not letting go of my best landscape contract just yet. How landscaping and running a shop will work is going to be an interesting experience but I'm not doing snow clearing this winter so I've got some time to sort out all that good stuff... 

When I got the space on Ottawa St., it was outdated, quite pink and with 2/3 of a finished floor. We put in a new change room, put in new window displays, took out the dated stuff and painted everything white. Painting it all white made it seem so much more spacious and gave a clean, modern background for the vintage clothing. I wanted to avoid spending even more money by putting in new floors, so we ripped up the old flooring and painted the tiles with porch paint. I would have loved to have crisp white floors but that's just asking for muddy foot prints so Julie and I (fueled by wine and burritos) spent a night with some dollar store stencils and made a design on the floor with grey porch paint. Seriously, I feel like I need to do a step by step on how we did the floors because it will make me a Pinterest celebrity (and that's the dream right?) but I doubt I will get to that. Just buy about 10 stencils so that you can move the ones you painted first along as you work...

I still have to rework some display areas to get every square inch out of my square footage but I doubt that feeling ever goes away.  It'll never be just right and that's part of the fun...

(See that sign behind me? Kirsten from Willow Art And Design made that for me. Homegirl is only 17 and getting her marketing on. I love the sign and I love her hustle.)

I also spent over $150 in tinsel but I consider silver tinsel an investment. It's never going to go out of style right?

And because this post is so picture heavy, I shall put in a rare click through. But it is worth clicking through to see my vintage dress:)

The dress is actually from another vintage place in town and it was originally meant as my birthday dress. But when I decided to open a store (at the time of my birthday I was already pretty serious about the store but stuck in moving forward due to some paperwork delays... 'paperwork' is evil), I cancelled the big shindig I was going to throw for my 30th and put my energy into the store. After all that, it just seemed fitting to wear the party dress for the grand opening.

I should have steamed that glorious bow on the back but after my dear mama just spent all afternoon steaming clothes to prep for the opening, I didn't feel like dragging the steamer out of the basement again. So I rocked a slightly wrinkly bow and survived to tell you about it. 

I also survived opening weekend, which is far more impressive. If you would have seen the mess that was in the store, mere hours before we opened up, you would be impressed too. To be honest, I would have never gotten those doors opened and this dressed zipped up without the help of so many people. Turns out I have a lot of supportive people in my life and I couldn't be more grateful for all the excitement and support. Let's end this blog post here before I get all weird and emotional again. 

But really, thanks so much.