The thrill of the hunt, seeking hidden treasures, discovering new and thrilling items makes this business more of an adventure than a job. We do work and work hard, but the rewards are great. The hard work comes sometimes after the find. We haul, move large pieces of furniture, we scrub, we dust, we polish, and then because we have a regular shop we have to try to arrange things to look nice. We have been in transition for the last two years. We have grown by leaps and bounds recently and our shop has looked like it is in transit. Lewis is always on the road in search of, or retrieving his fabulous finds. We have found it necessary to weed out the old and make room for the new. Being on 1stdibs has helped us refine our thinking. We are in a rural part of Virginia, in between the Chesapeake Bay and the Rappahanock River, a little bit of God's Country. Our shop is situated on the Main Street of the small Town of Kilmarnock. Originally we needed to have pickup items for the walk in customers. Not everyone understood our transition from a more tranditional antique shop to vintage and famous designer furniture and decorative arts of the early and mid twentieth century. Some people got down right mad indignate that we no longer carried old brown furniture and china knick knacks, not that we ever were average.
The shop recently has taken shape. Our local customers have realized that they now have something special. We draw from the entire state, North Carolina, Northern Virginia and D.C., plus many visitors from across the States. Now customers come in and bring their friends to see our collection. We are lucky that we have Comer & Co as a neighbor both in town and on 1st Dibs. Comer & Co compliments our shop their antiques are more traditional than ours. The two nice shops are a draw.
We have had to make room for the larger pieces that we have been acquiring. We have a red tag sale on going and we actually sent a lot of old inventory to an auction! The auction took place last Saturday during shop hours. It was on line as well as live. We watched our old stuff sell and of course we saw items we just had to have. We waited on customers and watched the auction! We counted the auction sales ( we sent a lot of things) and bid on a few as we made sales in the shop! A way fun day!!! One of the pieces that we won was a painting by an old friend and my painting instructor at Old Dominion University, Charles Sibley. Charles used to show in my Dad's Gallery, Auslew Gallery in Norfolk Virginia. I was thrilled to be able to obtain a large painting by him. We bought one or two other items, a pair of green Murano Lamps, two Wilmotte end tables, and another nice painting (buying art is in the blood).
Monetary rewards take time, we believe in reinvesting as much as possible. The real rewards happen when you look around and see all the improvements and the great items you have acquired in the shop. Nice compliments from your customers and just people who happen into the shop. It's the feeling of doing something well. I look around now and see our ideas taking form. It struck me this morning as I came in the shop that a change had actually come about.
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