Author: sarah

Where we started…

Where we opened.  Crazy, huh.

Our main goal was to provide a place for Mom to work {since all her babies had grown up, she was lonely (ha) and bored} and to give her and Dad something to help with retirement.  We didn’t want to get into debt and stress about all the bills, because well, that totally defeats the purpose of having a fun-family business, right.    So that left us with $2,500 to buy fabric.  Baaahahahahahahahah!  Okay, that is just crazy to me.  We were completely clueless. Mom and I went to Quilt Market in October and met a woman who was talking about her tiny shop she just opened.  {she reluctantly told us about her having to open with only 75K}  Gulp, we were in over our heads!!

Well, we just decided we would just do what we had planned and make the best of it. If we were gonna fail, heck, at least we tried.

My brother and his friend {our business partner} built  a website from scratch, and we thought we’d start  trying to do a little internet business on the  side.  {actually, we planned on dominating and taking over the world} insert evil laughter….

Who knew we would grow and grow.  I remember our first internet order.  We all cheered with joy and awe.  WE couldn’t believe it was actually working. LOL

We had classes and offered quilting, and were so blessed by the support from our local quilting ladies.

This was just the beginning.  Who knew how much more we would grow!?

Then…Mom broke her leg.

When we first started talking about opening a quilt shop I knew that I did NOT want the walls boring beige.  I had been into WAY too many quilt shops that were  bland or dark. I knew for sure that I wanted our shop to be bright and happy. Not to be confused by Neon and disco-ish. [i know, that is not a word, but you know what I mean, right?]

Anyway, I picked out this green and we LOVED it.  {actually, Mom started painting it a very boring color and I had to stop her and insist on this one. LOL}

Once the flooring started going down we all knew we were in for something good.

We couldn’t have been more excited!  {oh, and isn’t my husband cute??}  Really, he is.

We knew that ‘eventually’ we would need more space in the shop, so we decided to use some of the space we had in the ‘garage’ area to make a classroom and another room.  It took all of us to frame the giant wall.  We also had a lot of work to do on the front boardwalk and have even more plans for that.  We had windows to replace and stucco to apply.  So much to do before we could even open the shop!

This was so exciting for us.  Our dreams of a family business were starting to form.

This is a week about progress.  There is so much going on in our lives that I thought I’d like to focus on where we’ve been, and also where we are going.  I am driving to Hamilton for the week and am pretty excited about that.  I love being able to be back at the Shop, visiting-helping-working.  You know, the fun-busy-crazy stuff.

We {well actually, my brothers, Dad and husband} have been working on an addition to our shop.  We are making a room for a shipping department and that has me all excited.  I thought I’d show you our progress.  Since, we are going to talk about progress why not start at the very beginning, right!?!?

This is where we started…

We bought this old building that was first a Car dealership (and repair shop) then later was an Antique Store.  We had a lot of work to do.  Ripping down walls, scraping wall paper and adding rooms.  We needed a furnace and flooring, paint and elbow grease.

Our family has always LOVED this sort of work. My parents {Jenny and Ron} have always bought old houses and we’ve all loved working on them together.  So buying this shop in the shape it was in, was a natural thing for us to do.

For the rest of the week, I will show you our progress on our little shop in Hamilton.  From start to finish.  {except that we are never really finished.  We are always growing out of what is done and expanding more than we ever thought.}

I’ll have more for you tomorrow….

What are you making progress on right now?  I’d love to hear about it.

Sarah