See you soon at Twig

My husband David and I are in the process of remodeling our shop at 1175 South Coast Highway in Laguna Beach.  For locals, it's the old Asian Antique shop right next door to the Sandpiper.  If you go way back, it was originally built for the United Lodge of Theosophists, back in the 60s.  Turns out it was designed by an interesting architect at the time--Gregory Ains.  Ains worked for Richard Neutra, a well-known modern architect, in the 50s.  It's not a fancy building at all, just cinderblock and concrete, but the one interesting design feature is a room with a pyramid ceiling, and a skylight in the middle of the pyramid.  It's pretty cool.  We're going to remove the paint on the cinderblocks, drywall the ceiling, sand the floors, and pretty much leave it very simple.

Then we're going to fill it with gifts to sell.

Now, I have never sold gifts before.  Neither has David.  In fact, neither of us have ever worked in retail, unless you count the vegetable market (me) and McDonalds (David) where we worked way way back before college.  However, I have read the book "Retail for Dummies" from cover to cover, so what go wrong?

Also, I like to shop, especially for vintage things.  In fact, I go to flea markets whenever we travel.  I have a tole lamp hanging in the bathroom that I carried home from a flea market in Paris, and every time I visited my daughter at school in Boston, I would go to the flea markets there (the best!).  Now our son is in college in Pennsylvania which has awesome flea markets, yeah! 

But not everything in the store is vintage.  But even the new things harken back to days gone by.  I really love jewlery from the 40s (and jewelry in general) so there will be lots of that.  Also, lots of lamps (tole!) and some industrial age lamps that remind one of Jules Verne.  The cards, tshirts, books, pottery, etc all have some element from the past, particularly the 40s and 50s.  And the colors look like Bauer pottery--aqua, pale green, creamy yellow, that type of thing.

Here's some idea of what we're talking about:

And this:

 

We've also been to gifts shows, and I have been poring over catalogs and websites, looking for things that will amuse and amaze.  For instance, I found the candles I think we will carry, simply by googling "What is the best scented candle?"   I got a few that I am trying out, to see if the reviews are right.

We probably have a month or so of renovation, so we're looking at September/October to open.  I am really excited about this.  David says that it has always been his dream not to have a giftshop, so that's a bummer for him. (He's kidding...sort of.)  But he has been very supportive and is even sawing and sanding stuff in the garage that we'll use as fixtures.  I think he's having fun, and I am for sure.

More to come...