The Changing Room: May 2015

Do you ever experience situations in life, where the timing of things seem off?

Like your husband scheduling his knee surgery for Memorial Day weekend which was slated to be a weekend of home improvement projects? :)

or after 8 years, the stucco exterior of your house starts to crumble and desperately needs paint when you just resigned to put away the brush and rollers for a while?

Or your oldest daughter meeting an incredible young man whom we all have come to love, but who is moving to California in two weeks?

(cue Alanis Morissette's song, "Isn't it Ironic")

But.....don't ya also have it sometimes when the timing just seems RIGHT?!

I had that happen a few weeks ago, when a mutual friend, I'll call her "Rebeckles", introduced Katrina and I through Katrina's new house closing.

Rebeckles, the realtor, gave Katrina a gift certificate from my Room for Change business to be used toward some custom furniture built by my better half.

Katrina ordered a bench for her entry way, and then went on to order a couple more signs to personalize her new home.

Here are the pieces below.(Bench and planked sign over door).

(Fresh Market Sign)

After some phone conversations and some email dialogue, we decided we'd meet for coffee. Long story-short, we discovered that while I've been feeling overwhelmed by my work load, she is great at home staging and decorating, and would love to do more of this in the future and had some (not a ton, but some) time to spare.

After chatting, brainstorming and even praying together, we decided that maybe we could do some projects together in the future.

Fast foward a week later, and we did just that.

Spent the day working together...

She tagged along to my Friday's appointments (actually she did much more than that...she offered great insights with clients' decorating dilemas and helped me stage my friend Tracey's built in bookshelves).

We had a great day together and I look forward to more collaboration in the future!

Meet my new pal, Katrina!

Staging Tracey's room with new pillows, tray, lamps and accessories.

New wall color freshly painted too...I took it from a goldenrod yellow to "Jackson Tan". ( I didn't paint it-I only picked it). :)

After a busy morning of staging and consults, we gave each other tours of our own homes as we had never been before. We both assumed that we would appreciate each other's style and while I'm not sure what her thoughts were about mine, I loved hers! :)

This girl loves accessorizing.

No wonder we clicked.

Here's some vignettes from her house:

Bragger alert:
I'll point out the items I spied that she bought from my booth prior to me meeting her. (another reason I love her). :)

The rustic barnwood "love".

The metal "love letters" on twine:

The "and they lived happily ever after" on pallet wood sign:

How great are these frames? Wish I could take credit here, but no can do.

Check out the pallet shelves. Nope, didn't make those either, but want to now.

How cute is this?

Selfie time! And that's a wrap.

Well almost a wrap...

Postscript:
According to both of my fashion-forward teenage daughters, I should be thankful this wasn't a full length mirror.
I came home that day wearing the shirt you see, with red skinny jeans!! They were mortified. They said the shirt was coral and they laughed out loud when they saw me.

Upon further observation in this moment, I have to say I agree and publicly apologize to Katrina for forcing you to be seen with me that day.
Come to think of it, we haven't talked since.
Maybe this collaboration is over before it even began due to my fashion faux-pas.

I promise you Champs, I'm much more precise and trendy when it comes to color on your walls, than I am with clothes on this middle-aged body.

Please don't judge a book by it's cover! :)

And K.T.-please give me another chance. I promise to wear all black next time.

Comments...

thank you, thank you, thank you to all who came out to feel the zeel at our peddler's market on church street on saturday!

after an hour or two of flaring tempers (mine) and an assistant wanting to walk off the job (Ken) while setting up in a downpour, the day turned out to be beautiful and a great success!

we had so much fun chatting and peddling and already can't wait until september's fall market.

Not much time to narrate pics below, but suffice it to say, we were very pleased that after having a pick up truck and a full van of loot to sell at the beginning of the day,

at the end of the day, we packed up two totes and and odds and ends and could haul it all back with one trip in the van.

i marked down some items and brought them to my booth at not so shabby so be sure to swing in there for the leftovers!

thanks again for supporting my business!

it's only fun because of you champs!

I had a chance to briefly walk the street before the rain lifted and the crowds commenced. I snapped some pics of other vendors' booths:

my peddling partner kennedy and i sporting our custom designed aprons lovingly made by non other than client-turned-friend, Rebecca Kuipers! Thanks Beck! Love 'em!

Here's what was left at the end of the day minus the large "Oceans" song sign in the back. another vendor had been eyeing it all day and bought it after the market closed.

so happy to have done this.

so happy that it's over.

see you back here soon!