French Fries and Blogging

My redo of a blah wooden telephone bench (gossip bench.)  

It now sports shiny black paint and a black and white upholstery fabric.  

One day my mother just decided that she didn't like french fries anymore.  To most people that would seem odd to eat fries one day and the next day declare that you didn't like them.  To me, a kid at the time,  and my Dad the General Manager of my Grandfather's Burger King Franchise, it just seemed unheard of to NOT eat something that we sold.  I later understood that she did it for health reasons and it had nothing to do with Burger King specifically - except that we were there a lot.  She was learning about the fat and calories from french fries and what they could potentially do to her body, so she cut them out of her diet.  Smart lady!

Well, for health reasons, mental health reasons, I took a very long, very extended break from photography and blogging.   I don't think that I will ever be able to understand why I had to stop writing or why I had to stop taking pictures, I just had to do something completely different.  You know the saying "If you continue to do the same things, you will continue to get the same results" or is that the definition of insanity ...is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?!!  Well, I'd been doing the same thing over and over again and I wasn't getting anywhere near the results I was hoping to achieve after 5 years or so.  When Mocha passed away it started a whole new chapter of my life and it's been a doozy.

No moss is growing under my feet though.  I've been incredibly busy the past few months now that I'm done sulking.  In February I rented a 6 x6 booth space in an antique mall and shared that space with a friend of mine.  It was an easy way to take some of the treasures that I have and put them in the booth for sale.  The idea of course, is to make some money.  Well, I spent more than I made, that's for sure, but I was having a great time doing it.  Next thing you know I'd been to a dozen auctions and found myself with a garage full of furniture!  There's no way that a 6 x 6 shared booth space is big enough to showcase and sell all of this furniture that I have, so I went looking for a second location and I found it.

This weekend is the Grand Opening of Emily's Antiques and Design in Jacksonville, FL although they have officially been open since April 1st.  I rent a 10 x 11 booth at Emily's and I'm all by myself on that one.  It was quite scary to think about paying the rent and hoping that the customers would come to a new place and buy my stuff - but thankfully they did arrive and they have purchased a lot of my furniture.  The very first weekend Emily's was open I sold all the furniture in my booth except for a patio table and chairs.   I came home from a trip to Alabama to a nearly empty booth!  I was elated!!

This is the booth as of a few days ago, but 

if the patio table hasn't sold yet, it's getting yanked out today.

Just a few months into my antique booth business and I found myself overwhelmed with going literally in two directions.  One booth was near the beach and the other was 25 miles away from that one.  I wasn't balancing the two very well, so I decided to give up the little booth and let my friend have the space all to herself.  (She wanted her own booth by this time, too, so it worked out perfectly!)  As of 24 hours ago, I'm back down to one location, but that won't last too long I'm sure.  I'll figure out how to have multiple places, it's just going to take some organization.  (I may have to hire that part out! haha!)

I have discovered the JOY of painting furniture and I have also discovered that I do have an eye for the types of pieces that people like to purchase (with the exception of that patio table and chairs.)  I don't want to price myself out of a sale, so I really research what my furniture sells for locally and online and I price it just a little below that.  If I got a great deal on that piece of furniture at auction, I pass along that great deal to the customer.  I rarely get anything that very common, so it's not like I'm selling Pier One furniture for a hundred dollars less than Pier One, I'm usually selling 20 - 50 year old pieces that have seen their better days.  HOWEVER!  I just discovered a new paint and I'm taking a class in two weeks on how to use it.  I already love it and I think it is going to be my next true love.

I will absolutely write about the furniture painting class.  I'm so excited about it!

Have a wonderful day.
Kristin


To see what I've got for sale and what I've recently purchased you can LIKE my FB page "Look what we found. Items destined for sale."