Back to the Athens Booth

We weren't happy with the way we were using our space at Athens--the problem was there was too much empty space. Empty space means a sales opportunity missed. But how to rearrange to allow more opportunity to display and sell?

We looked around our buildings for furniture that could help with our problem and came up with a china cabinet and a shelf. We loaded them up yesterday morning along with a coat tree, a wicker doll's sled, some lamps, some more vintage clothing and 4 totes. Larry said (as he always does), "I don't know where you're going to put all this stuff." And I replied (as I always do), "I think most of it will fit. What doesn't. we'll bring back home."

This is how it looks now (you can see the last arrangement in this post). I had to snap pictures in a hurry since the manager graciously let us stay 15 minutes after closing so I could finish up.

This is the shelf we added. It's right in front, first thing people see as they turn left in the store. While it blocks the view into the booth behind it, the Hoosier cabinet and china cabinet are still visible above it, and the left side view is clear. I grouped items on the shelves a little loosely: serving plates, cake plates and carriers serving bowls and mixing bowls, and miscellaneous containers.

Here's the top of the shelf: the wicker doll sled, crystal lamps, funky fish and a Japanese black vase.

And inside the booth, a look at the china cabinet we added; I filled it with milk glass that shows well against the dark wood.

I put the coat rack just inside the booth and hung it with a variety of tops, dresses, scarves and coats. Vintage clothing is selling well here; 50% of what I have brought in has sold, so I added a little more.

Only a few changes made in this part of the booth; I moved the silver coffee urn to the tabletop, added a yellow cream and sugar/salt and pepper set for color.

I love, love, love this orange retro lamp. I would keep it if I had a place for it! I found the lamp in Romney, WV and the shade here in Ripley, about 200 miles apart, but don't they look right together?

To go with the retro lamp I added black and white: floral plate, black vase and tea set. For fun I also added the retro clock above the lamp and the Vegas blue glitter clock. The tea set is resting on a Dos Equus beer sign. I wished I had a mod painting of some sort to replace the Blue Girl, but it will have to do for now.

View from one booth into the next (we have two, side by side). Still open enough, but we were able to add a lot more merchandise and that was the goal.

We did end up taking a few things home: a hobby horse and a stool had to go, but both can be stored and put into a booth later as space opens up.

I was well pleased with our work yesterday, and only wish we'd had another 30 minutes for me to tweak it a bit more. With this work, there is always something else that I want to do, rearrange, make it look prettier/more visible or whatever. But for now, I am happy with the way it looks.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Booth Update: Athens Antique Mall

I've spent a good bit of time the past week working in my booths. Here are a few photos of the major changes we made:

First up is Athens:

We took out the big trunk and added this sweet dinette set. I love the blue trim on the table. The chair legs need sanding and repainting but otherwise this set is perfect.

Added a little blue, green and white to the tabletop.

Another addition is vintage clothing. I've been struggling with a way to display it. I don't like how I have it now, although it has worked well enough to sell a few things. We've got ideas for a better way to do this. 

Displaying these Depression glass wineglasses on a silver tray seems to bring out their shine.

I'm still looking for a good way to display jewelry, too. This is okay, but not great.

I'd forgotten we had this bachelor's chest! It was buried in the garage--a bad comment on the state of our storage! It's a pretty piece. I like the hidden drawers. The oval mirror in front of it has been here for a while and I thought it was time to move it on.

That's the highlights from Athens. I'll have some for Ravenswood tomorrow.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ack!! Forgot the Photos!

I was in Athens, OH today, restocking our booth there, and I forgot to take pictures! So you will not see the Hoosier cabinet we moved in there, or all the other changes I made. See my sad face? I swear sometimes I think I do all that arranging just to share it here.

I also made some stops at thrift shops along the way. My goodness, I did well. Too well, maybe; the van is just as full now as it was when I left this morning. Oh dear. Maybe I can take a few photos of the booty tomorrow.

The good news is all the booths did very well in July, our best month ever in fact. We've sold everything from tiny items to big pieces of furniture, glassware to wheelbarrows, wineglasses and woodenware. I'll be interested to see the month's statements so I can see just what the hot items were.

Now it's time to turn my focus to the next two big things on my schedule: The Inland Waterways Festival in Marietta, OH this weekend and the Augusta Heritage Series Appalachian Storytelling Workshop I'll be teaching next week. So I'm dusting off river stories and river lore, and digging into my Appalachian storehouse to find good things to share with my students.

Tonight I'll rest, though, and let my mind turn over all the possibilities for these two events. And eat tomatoes. Definitely eat tomatoes. Our gardens runneth over right now, and of course I cannot take the time to can until I return home mid-month. That's how it is, isn't it? But it's okay. The cellar is still very full from last year's canning so I can let it ride this year and just enjoy eating the fruit's of our labor fresh.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Athens Booth Update

Today was more booth work, mostly just adding some new things and doing a little rearranging. Without my roadie (husband) with me, there was no heavy work involved, thank goodness. Since I do not think I'll be able to get back to either place in the next few weeks, I wanted to be sure everything was well stocked.

Here's a look at some changes at the Athens booth:

I can't believe I didn't get a good photo of the dresser and mirror we added to the booth last week. We dropped it off on our way to buy my new van. I moved the lace shrug from Ravenswood, and picked up the cropped jacket just recently. I do believe it is made of sealskin; it's quite the vintage piece and has a stunning jeweled catch (that I also neglected to photograph). I think I've underpriced it, but then, I got it for a good price so I can pass on the good fortune to the next buyer.

In order to make space for the dresser, we took down the old ironing board and moved this big trunk into the center of the booth. It actually freed up space--the ironing board took up more room than you might think.

We added this sweet little table a couple weeks ago.  brought in the lamp and the funky gold and black planter today.

This is our second booth at Athens, or part of it anyway. Today I brought in two cutter quilts and the steel water cooler along with two amberina moon & stars goblets that found their way to this space. I also added that red Lucite apple and a few other small things here. Smalls, as items other than furniture or big pieces are called, are really the meat of antiques sales. Furniture takes time to move and takes a lot of space, while the smalls can bring in as much or more income in much less time.

I was told when I bought her that the pink glass lady is a Fenton piece, but my research is not backing that up. Anyone know? She's pretty anyway, but I like to label accurately.

Small tables priced under $20 seem to be good sellers so I have been keeping my eyes open for them. These two needed a little tightening up and rubbing down but they are both nice accent pieces now. I added the "jewelry lady" last week. I am a little leery about having jewelry displayed like this, but I thought I'd give it a try. If I lose pieces, I'll know it was a bad idea. So far, so good though.

This is the other cutter quilt I brought in today. Crafters like to use these for all kinds of projects. Both are handsewn and hand-quilted but they have some stains, a few holes and frayed edges. I actually just use quilts that are like these, but I have all I can store right now, so...

That's a quick tour of Athens. This new mall is filling up quickly and will probably have all spaces rented by the end of July. It's looking good in there; next time I visit I will take photos of the rest of the place. I hope the owner gets good signage out by the highway soon as this mall is not visible from the major highway close by and signs are needed to drive in traffic. That and some local ads would really bump up business. So far sales have been good and I think that with more promotion this mall could really be a big success. My job, though, is to bring in good stuff. And that is something I think I can keep doing.


Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Checking In, and the New Booth

Still here and jumping from one thing to another so fast you'd think I was an eel in a frying pan (my father, who was raised in New Orleans, always said eels jumped around in the pan when they were cooked). Many skillets in the fire, certainly, all of them cooking pretty hot right now.

Yesterday we finished, for the time being, the set-up of our new booth at the Athens (Ohio) Antique Mall. It's a lot of work to do the initial set-up, as those of you who do this know, and I will have a lot of tweaking to do in the next few weeks. We already expanded it, for one thing. I didn't like the way the owner has it laid out, realizing after renting my space that the view to it would be pretty well blocked. So I rented the space beside it so that the entrance will be very visible to anyone entering the mall.

Here are a few pics of yesterday's work:

I love this little dropleaf table, and the amethyst lamp it holds. 

View from entrance to the booth, right now. A lot of this will be blocked by tall shelves, which I am not happy about, so I rented the space to the right to open it up. The right side looks a little sparse right now because I've spread out my stuff into spaces not yet rented to make it look a little more full for opening day. As the space fill, I will be moving my things back into my rented area.

 I have two of these old church pews. They are both made of American Chestnut, a wood not available since 1930. I date these to the turn of the century although they could be older.

This old aqua cabinet with glass handles, and the white dresser with blue handles, came from the estate we bought last month. If only my house was a mansion I'd keep both! 

Two little tables also from the estate. I had planned to paint the one on the left, but then decided to let the buyer have that fun. The lamp had been converted to electricity but the burner was missing a prong that held the chimney in place, so I converted it back to kerosene.

Inside the cabinet.

 We used a baby crib rail on the wall as a hanger for mugs and little pitchers. We bent hooks out of wire and now have a very flexible space for hanging whatever we want. The washstand was from the estate too, as was the pink chair. It's really not crooked, just the camera is!

I had the steel shelf extra when I re-did my workroom, and it's perfect for our needs right now.

Here is the second space--a little sparse at the moment.

I saw a dealer at another mall hang hankies and scarves like this, and thought it was a great idea. I found little clothespins at a craft store in Virginia.

The view from the second booth into the first one. Nice and open. I hate a claustrophobic feeling.

That's it so fat. More pics later as we continue to develop this space.
Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.