Branching Out!
Written by Callie
Okay so that title up there is a play on words because I’m “branching out” and opening a little spot in a craft mall with Local Pines! (get it? A pine tree has branches?? I know, I’m hilarious). I’m so excited for this new little venture though!
It all started a few weeks ago while I was contemplating other jobs for the umpteenth time. And I got hooked on antique stores and the idea behind them. You may or may not know, but I was basically raised in an antique store. My mom, along with her best friend had a booth at a store in Montgomery for years while we were growing up and on the days that mom had to work in the summer sometimes she would bring me, Kenzie, and Brenna along for the day which we spent exploring the booths, looking at all the old, pretty things inside.
Anyway, antique stores are generally a big building that is split up into “booths” and each booth is a different vendor’s property to decorate and sell items as they see fit. So one booth can be completely different from the booth next to it and that’s what makes antique stores great. Seriously, if you’ve never been in one I strongly encourage you to, you never know what treasures you’ll find!
So in North Richland Hills (about an hour from my house), there’s a newer version of an antique store. It’s called Painted Tree and it’s still a giant store that’s been divided into booths, but most of the vendors in these stores sell more modern and updated items than a traditional antique store does. Though you can still find booths with the vintage things. While I was walking through the store one day when Kenzie and Brenna were visiting, I noticed that there were some empty booths which made me wonder how much it would be to rent space and sell things.
This is just one half aisle of like 20. So. Much. Stuff.
So a few weeks later I emailed Painted Tree, along with a few other antique stores, to inquire about their open spaces, selling policies, and pricing. After some back and forth, I decided to rent a space at Painted Tree! This was a big leap for me and I was so excited to start moving things into my little space of D17.
I’m not sure how I feel about the fence boards. They were left by the old owner of this booth. The good news is Painted Tree let’s you customize your space so I can change it! The bad news is that I don’t have time to change it at the moment.
I gathered up what I thought was a TON of items to sell. Spent the week writing price tags for each item and packing them up. Then on May 1st I moved in! And after an hour or two of unpacking everything into my space, I was extremely disappointed. I had nothing! I didn’t fill my space up at all and everything just felt kind of sad and pathetic. I left the shop that day feeling very discouraged about the whole thing.
But then I sold an item! And an item that I didn’t think was that great no less. And then another item sold and another! And by the end of the week 6 things had sold! Granted they weren’t very expensive items and I still haven’t made any money (they’ll take the rent out of my profits before I see any of it and I’m no where near covering that at the moment), but it made me more enthusiastic about the whole venture again!
So this last weekend I went home for mother’s day and my mom helped me clean out my closet where we had been storing items to sell for years now and I loaded my car down with more items! So this week I’ll price everything and start to fill up my space. And hopefully make rent! Ha!
I’m really excited about this and hope that it will turn into something bigger! I’ve got all these plans and if things go well they may just happen. I’ll for sure be dragging Kenzie and Brenna with me to Round Top in the fall to scour the rows and rows of junk for things to bring back and sell. We go to Round Top anyway but this time it will be more fun because we have a mission of finding things for the shop!
If you’re ever in the area Painted Tree has a ton of cool stuff and you should totally check it out! Also, If you’ve got ideas of how I could change the fence posts in my booth (white wash them? Paint a mural? Literally anything else?) leave a comment here or send us an email! I’d love to hear all your great suggestions!
