Saturday, August 20, 2011

Saturday Night News

It has been awhile since we have blogged. We are discovering that since the Petoskey show(pictured above) that we have been working overtime to get ready for the next big show in September which is the Country Living Fair in Columbus Ohio. The Petoskey show however, was fun for us to do. The numbers of people that usually come to this show seemed to be down. The main parking lot on Sunday was never full and it almost always has been full in the past. We however still sold lots of product including our two largest items- a rattan sofa and a rather large harvest table.  

Having done this show now for a couple of years we get to meet many regulars that attend this show. We are also finding good energy between the show and many of the people who shop our our space at Then and Now in Petoskey which is just up the street from the fair grounds were we set up at to do the show.
Speaking of Then and Now, we have had a couple of the best months we have ever had at any antique mall. We are so gratful for all the hard work of Tracy and all the people that work our space for us.

About the time we did the Petoskey show we also took the Train from Grand Rapids to Chicago to pay a visit to the Gift Market. We love doing this to see what new product is out there that we could benefit from for the design business. We also love being inspired by what we see and try to collect ideas for many of our repuposed products we do. We are also discovering that some of the vendors buy vintage to use in their displays. In fact, the people who do KD Vintage (above) have purchased from us at Allegan Antique Fair.

The day we returned to Grand Rapids from the Petoskey show I managed to acquire about 13 antique arch top vintage windows. There were a few more than I had planned so as you can see packing my small cart with them was a bit of a challenge. They came out of a wonderful old farm house. The grey haired gentleman who sold them to us told us that his grandfather build the farm house and  his grandfather's name was written on the side of the windows. I have brought a few of these windows over to Elements here in Grand Rapids where this past week I hung one of them from the ceiling. It looks spectacular!

We also purchased a number of these iron/metal legs benches from someone and have recovered the seats in vintage grain sack material.

This load of vintage casing and bead board also was something I picked up this past week. It all came out of and old school house that burned. Some of it is painted white but most of it is painted red and blue. Wonderful colors to work with for creating our vintage frames and caulk boards.

 
I also just clean this vintage drafting table and old school lockers which can now bee seen at Bluedoor.

So as you can see there is plenty to keep us busy. We are also now regularly bring items to Elements here in Grand Rapids(See blogs we follow). As we get ready for the Country Living Fair we will keep you posted on the finds and creations we come up with for the show. We are planning our largest load ever. So much to do and so little time! We have heard from a number of you that you are planning to attend the show in September. This absolutely delights us and we hope you all stop by to say hi.