08/30/2026
The Road to 15 Part 2 ✨
Our shoppe is celebrating 15 years in business this September, and we thought it would be fun to share a mini-series over the next four Sundays about our journey. 15 years feels like such a major milestone, and we can’t wait to celebrate with all of you—because you’ve been the BIGGEST part of it.
During those first few years, we were just learning how to operate a business: getting to know all of you, plus figuring out the ebbs and flows of ordering, merchandising, and selling. We definitely made a few mistakes along the way—like the time I meant to order 4 of a massive wall clock, made a typo, and ended up with 40! So, naturally, we had a very special Black Friday deal on large clocks that year.
Before long, you started inviting us into your homes for decor help, which sparked the in-home decorating and design side of our business. As we operated out of our original Broadway location, the dream kept evolving—as dreams do. We began the hunt for a new home and found 161 W. Brundage St. listed for sale.
Nothing inside the building had been updated since 1956. It had previously been used for cold meat storage, which meant we had to clear out 600 mini lockers. It had no heat, needed a brand-new roof, required updated electrical—the list went on—but we were sold! We purchased the Brundage location in February of 2014 and kept it a secret so we could begin renovations while staying open on Broadway.
The night before closing, I had a massive panic attack—a full-on "head between my knees" kind of panic—but Tyler was cool as a cucumber. He had unwavering confidence in the purchase. It’s funny how partners work: when one loses their footing, the other is right there to calm the storm.
We did a lot of the demolition work ourselves, and over the next few months, our families traveled in to help. Sam and I used one of our merchandising days a week just to tackle delayed projects inside the building and focus on our vision for the new shoppe. We had a tight budget and a four-month deadline for a massive overhaul, so every spare second was spent working on the new space.
We learned a ton about construction and what it takes to bring a building back to life. We hand-sanded the wood floor planks, laid the floors ourselves, and Sam was an absolute champ at cleaning the ceiling trusses. Meanwhile, our other team members painted pegboards at the old location so the move would go as smoothly as possible.
With the help of so many friends and family, we hit our deadline, and all that hard work paid off in a big way. Our Grand Opening at the new location was even bigger than our very first opening day! Standing in that freshly restored space, surrounded by familiar faces and new friends, made every late night and dusty hour worth it.
Thank you for following along! Stay tuned next Sunday for Part 3 of our journey.
