Moving Out & Moving On

Floating in the center of Turner lake on a paddle board my mom got us the previous Christmas, I sighed deeply as it had been the first time in months I felt relaxed. My husband, Elijah, could see the signs more clearly than I. For months, my days were filled with stress — waking up stressed, going to bed stressed; unable to hold a conversation without trailing off in thought of all the work I had waiting for me on Monday morning. While the sun beat down on us, no doubt giving Elijah a sunburn, he made his business proposal:

“What if you quit your job and opened your own store?”

Not more than four months later we opened our little shop in Salem, Oregon. Despite being relatively new to Salem ourselves, we were able to build a community of friends and felt successful in our new endeavor. As with everything in life, there were highs and lows and the lows were infinitely more stressful than any job I’d ever had but the highs were equally rewarding. 8 months in, our numbers were headed in the right direction; we were out of of the red, in to the black and on our way to the green. And then in June of 2023, our key demographic got bad news and everyone was forced to tighten the purse strings. Along with the bad news of student loan forgiveness being rejected, prices everywhere for everything started to go up even more and I was being stretched thin financially and emotionally.

After two and half wonderful years of ups, downs, new friends, beautiful finds, one broken wrist, and many hours of work, we made the decision to close the brick and mortar. Moving the store online meant a larger customer base, a third less work, and two thirds less cost. The night of April 14th, we laid in bed, tears streaming down our faces as we announced to the world, well, the world of Instagram, of our decision.

We spent the next month giving the best damn sale the vintage world had ever seen. After the sale, we spent three days packing up what was left and all my work materials which included six large boxes of all my fabric! Of course, I had broken my wrist the week before so poor Elijah had to do all of the heavy lifting all on his own. And then the real work began! Well…it began for Elijah…

We had talked about setting up the guest room to be a work space but I knew if I didn’t actually walk outside of our house each day, I would most likely slip in to a dangerous state of mind. With the help of one of our best friends (that we met through the store of course), Elijah built a beautiful studio in our backyard for me to work. (Shout out to Valley Carpentry LLC!) Here’s what Elijah has to say about the building process:

“I initially thought it was going to be a two week process because of all the projects we had done at the store and growing up with a dad who was a contractor, but as soon as I started the foundation, I quickly realized that part alone was going to take two weeks. But that didn’t keep me down! I had to work around the rain, or just be fine with having soaking wet shoes while trying to work. Unfortunately, I had to choose the wet shoes more often than not so I could get it built sooner. I went with a lean-to style because I knew it would look good and allow for more storage (we all know Allie NEEDS that storage). We wanted to use reclaimed windows and an antique door that had been part of the backdrop in our wedding so I constructed two walls without any windows and that was definitely the easiest part of the whole process. The other two walls took two weeks to construct to accommodate for the old windows and door. When you’re not a professional, it’s really easy to get quarter inch and three-quarter inch mixed up, so be careful. I made sure to use an insane amount of nails so that bad boy ain’t going anywhere. All in all, I am so happy I was able to provide this for Allie despite being so intimidated by such a big project. I think I did a pretty damn good job.”

So now I am all moved in to the studio and I’ve already made a huge mess with my current project. We are excited for what the future holds. We are thankful for the amount of support we have received. We hope you’ll continue to follow along as we navigate this new adventure.