Okay, we’re ready! We had a fabulous soft opening and are so thankful and appreciative to all the family members and friends that came out to support us and see what we’ve been working so hard on. Over the last few weeks we have tweaked our check out system, rearranged a bit of furniture, collected even more great products, and finished a bit of decor that still needed to be done. The space will be a never ending project but I’m thrilled about how it looks so far and all the potential it holds!

If you are free, we will have our BIG GRAND OPENING on Saturday, May 19 from 10- 4. Our local bakery, D’lish will be making special treats for the event and we have giveaways and door prizes – inlcuding gift certificates to the Handmade Happinesss Boutique, and a collection of Twist Style jewelry worth more than $200!

The Chester Farmer’s Market will be in full swing right across the street, the bakery will be open for you to grab a delicious Lamp Lighter coffee, and you should also visit Harvest – a gorgeous little shop right around the corner from us! Lots of great reasons to visit Chester Village Green this weekend.

Hope to see you soon!

This is an old dumbwaiter door! It will have a pretty vintage mirror, hooks and even a little shelf. I think we are going to mount it on an old dresser I'm planning to use for display.

Repurposing an old iron grate - scraped all the paint and rust off and she's almost ready for her "after" picture!

It's hard to get a good picture, but you get the idea!

A little closer to our opening! We are shooting for April 27 and 28 for our GRAND OPENING! We’ll be doing a giveaway and have D’lishious goodies, too. More info coming soon!

Since we’ve started this move/new project, there haven’t been many days that either Dave or I could spend the ENTIRE day working on the new space. It’s a little tricky with the kids having so much going on. We really could not have Baby Leo with us while we were slopping trays of paint and sanding spackle. David has had a pretty rigorous practice and game schedule for soccer and these days Balin “has a life” outside of our home.

With everything our days bring, it’s a wonder we’ve gotten as far as we have: The floor is done! Well, except for the bathroom. The painting is done! Well, except the smudges on the ceiling.

This will be my office soon. I included this picture because once I move in, this space will never ever be so tidy again.

BUT – there is one job that we are ahead of schedule on and it’s all thanks to having dear friends! Last week, two of the studio girls and my dear friends – Kim and Chrissy – offered to come help me move the bulk of the studio. I was going to do this all myself over the course of a week or so in order to save some money on labor, but they would have none of it! They stepped out of their jobs as the Twist Style studio girls and came in as friends to help make quick work of it. It only took one full day of hauling stuff to get ALL the small stuff moved out.

Then my grandparents came and I took a couple of days to prepare for their visit  (by FINALLY cleaning my house!) and to hang around with them. We traveled to North Carolina to visit family and while I was gone another dear friend Ed Shore came down to help Dave with a secret plan to move all the BIG stuff over to the new space without me knowing!

I’ve known Ed for a long time – he and Dave’s other best friend, Peter, came with our marriage. Having a husband that came with two best friends meant more than just gaining a couple of buddies, it has been more like gaining a couple of extra brothers. I was surprised to hear the guys had moved the rest of the studio, but I was not at all surprised to hear that Ed was right in there, busting his booty to help us out.

With all the love and luck this new Twist Style adventure is beginning with, we are certainly off to a great start!

Got all the big stuff in! Thanks to Dave and Ed, I should add.

Now that the flooring has been started, it’s time to begin thinking about other important tasks that I have yet to begin. Like putting a sign out front!

Almost done with the flooring - I thought Dave and I would be doing it together - but it turns out, he's done it all himself! My hero!

For the last week, I’ve had some silly messages scrawled on our front windows to entice folks to peek in the front windows. I put just a little blurb up about “hand crafted” jewelry and left it at that. I want folks to be surprised and delighted when they pop in and finally see our finished product shop for the first time!

But it does seem rather important that I get some sort of actual signage up in front of our place! I’ve been looking at some of our local sign companies as I really want to keep our patronage local. I’ll be calling around for some quotes this week and hope to see a shiny, super professional looking sign and window lettering in front of our new space very soon!

BTW Have you seen the bathroom in this place? It’s like peeing in a pumpkin and it has to go! We need a pretty, girly, ladies room for the Twist Style gals!

We don't like peeing in a pumpkin - and now we don't have to - I'm almost done painting over the orange!

Getting some stuff in here - but man, you should see how much is left to move!!

Now that we have all the walls covered – it only took two coats of primer and a five gallon bucket of paint – it’s time to start the floor!!!

We haven't gotten far on it, but at least we've started the floor!

I chose a highly rated, but rather inexpensive wood laminate.  My whole goal for our space is to create the look of a vintage beach cottage so I chose a lightish color that will brighten the space up and look a little sandy. The only trouble with my choice? We are saving money by putting it in ourselves.

It’s going to look fabulous, but I anticipate being pr-e-tt-y sore after a few days of crawling on the ground dragging planks and tools. Ohhh well, I just have to keep in mind that it will be worth all the hard work very soon!

Plus, look at all we have done: the new doorway to my office is framed up:

Now the weird blue spot is a pretty, framed doorway!

Pretty much all the painting is finished except the pumpkin colored bathroom and a few spots of edging,  the big holes in the drywall have been patched up and our new hot water heater is fully operational! I’d say we’ve made some process in just over a week!

Drywall torn out to access stupid plumbing

And here we have it all patched up and ready to paint!

Thanks for checking in on us! If you happen by while we’re there working, please pop in and say “Hi!”

Week One! We’ve had the keys to our new space for exactly one week now, and even though I feel like we’ve made lots of progress, I am getting a little anxious about all that’s left to do. Despite the fact that he worked all week and even spent evenings over there, my  dear husband Dave has been working like a maniac over there all weekend.

With Baby Leo it isn’t possible for us to both be there at the same time, so I got to be the one at home doing laundry, vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms. From a manual labor standpoint, it’s pretty obvious that I got the better end of the deal! Dave wasn’t completely alone though – we did manage to cajole our high schooler out of bed before 9 a.m. to help with a few hours of painting.

One of our challenges has stemmed from the wacky plumbing job the previous tenant left. The old place was a hair salon and whoever ran the extra pipes for their hair washing stations was a total idiot! I don’t mean to be rude, but you’ve got to see the ridiculousness…Dave has had to cut big holes in the drywall to repair their shoddy handiwork. Also, for some reason the HVAC system is currently draining through a wall and into the sink in the “kitchenette.” How odd. Thankfully, our good friend James is a plumber and took the time to help Dave figure things out.

This has put us a bit behind our schedule, but seeing some improvements at the end of each work day is super encouraging! Thanks for checking in on us – we hope to have some even bigger changes to show you soon!

The kitchenette area would have been a nice idea. IF it didn't have a pipe from the HVAC unit draining into the sink.

I’ve gone from crying “my eyes! my eyes!” in regard to the bright colors the studio was painted when we started working to cyring “my arms! my arms!” now that I’ve spent 2 days with a paintbrush. Well, actually with a roller – but part of the building features 10 foot ceilings so even on my little step ladder, there is lots of reaching.

Today, I had some of the studio girls come help out a bit with edging and trimming, and dear Janet willingly wielded the roller. I was so thankful for the help!

I patched a bunch of giant holes and sanded a ton, too. Apparently, someone didn’t know the difference between joint compound and spackle because there are a few spots suffering from severe overkill. I’m thinking some of those massive lumps need to chiseled off and re-patched. Fun, FUN. Not.

Also completed today: bathroom cleaning – HORRIBLE (the space has been empty since about August – can you say MOLD?).

On tap for tomorrow? Dave has his SawzAll ready to chop a hole in the wall and create a doorway between my future office and future production area. He seems to know what he’s doing, so why am I so nervous?

Even though there is still lots of work ahead of us, and some of it is not going to be very fun, I’m really really excited about being all set up in this space!

So, this is what we are trying to cover up - trust me it's much darker in person!

This is just the tinted primer, but it's pretty close to what the final color will be. I love it!

Here you can see our paper covered front windows. Can't wait to do that first pretty window - already have some ideas!

Hi there! Are you here for a little peek at what we’re up to? We’ve had the keys to our new studio space for less than a week, but we are already making big strides toward moving in and opening the doors!

Here’s what you’ll eventually find in our little space:

An open artist’s studio with production space  for our lines of handmade products  PLUS a pretty storefront featuring not only my own handmade pieces, but the beautiful work of other supremely talented artistic folks I know!

The setting will remind you of that old beach cottage you used to vacation at – or maybe still do? Watery colors, seaside charm, but a little quirky and kitschy…that’s me and that’s what we’re creating to share with you!

We have a lot of work ahead of us, but this week we managed to get part of the space primed and the new flooring picked out. It’s starting to come together!

New Home For The Studio

Priming Almost Done - Can't Wait to Cover That Floor!

Holes to Fix, Colors to Banish