We are open in Florida!

In April of 2017 we signed a lease on a new store in Florida. With a planned opening date of Nov 1, 2017 we came home to Maine and started planning. We quickly realized that the space we had leased was just not going to cut it, so we called the owner and negotiated for the space next door to it. The small plaza we had rented in was built in 2006 during the realstate boom. Right before the crash.  It had never been occupied since it was built! 11 years! Glad I wasn’t holding that mortgage! After many back and forths with blue prints and layout planning, they started the build out. Then hurricane Irma came along and while she did not hit our area she did take up all the contractors and supplies and clogged the permit wheel so badly we were set wayyyyy back on the back burner. This is understandable, as this was not our home or current open business, those take priority.  But it still had a huge impact on our winter business causing us to loose all of fourth quarter and first quarter retail sales in the store. With inventory and display pieces stored in moms house, my house, a storage unit and two other vacant stores in the plaza, filling orders and doing shows was very challenging. But thankfully we survived with lots of organization and digging lol. last Thursday we had the final signatures on our occupancy permit and we could flip on the open sign.... we have to admit it was kind of anti climatic! After fighting tooth and nail and miles of paper work it was done. The store was put together and almost filled with inventory and we could open! Mom will be running the store down here as she and Dad are full time Florida residents now and I head home to Maine around June 22 or 23.  I will be getting the Maine store open at that time. Because of all the delay and how short the season will be in Maine we will be focused on selling out all inventory there since we will close that store in sept for good. We will have linen and frames, but patterns and new wool and most of the stuff on the website is all located in Florida now. It is just not feasible to fully stock the Maine store for such a short time. Basically the first of July to the middle of sept. But there will be deals on everything left there! So stay tuned for lots of sale posts at the Maine location!