Two and a half years ago I had my mid life career crisis. I shifted my focus from photography to a web based business. Reclaimed Home was meant to be a totally different beast, but I went with the flow.

The mission statement back in August of 2007 was pretty off track. There were to be four functional sections of this website…..

1. The Blog. Ok, still going strong! My initial goal was to keep up the 5 posts per day, 5 days per week. I’m now down to one post and that’s a struggle. It’s just waaayyyyy too time consuming! I guess I was hoping for more tips and guest bloggers. (hint)

2. The Forum. Yeah, nobody bothers with that and I haven’t done anything to promote it. I’ll probably make it disappear real soon. It’s stale.

3.  The Store. The bread and butter of Reclaimed Home. Or is it? Well, not the Reclaimed Home Store. I don’t love the software, so I’ve been ignoring it and uploading everything to Etsy. Question to any Etsy folks out there….Do you only have an Etsy store? Do you think it’s important to have my own store too? I’m debating whether or not I should kill my own store or shift to a different software.

FYI, initially I had wanted to represent other creatives here and NOT MAKE ANYTHING MYSELF!! I had difficulty finding reliable artists (I know, an oxymoron) and said “Screw this. If I want something done, I have to do it myself.”

FYI again, I had absolutely no intention of becoming a flea market vendor. It just so happened that Brownstoner held a salvage fest the week before I launched and I did so well there, I jumped on board when he started his Brooklyn Flea.

4. The Listings. Hmm, the FSBO listing service is not exactly working out as planned, but the real estate photography is doing just fine. I love shooting houses. It’s easy. It’s fun. It pays. What more can a gal ask for?

So, what does 2010 hold in store for Reclaimed Home?

The universe has been telling me that I shouldn’t have been so quick to abandon the photography. Luckily, I didn’t and I’ve been incorporating those skills into this business.

The universe, or rather, my pocketbook has been telling me that I’m nuts to pay $200 per month for a storage space. I’ve made a decision to cut out furniture and just deal in small handmade items. It will probably be an entire season before I rid myself of everything, but look for a sale this coming week.

And that’s about it in a nut shell. My biggest disappointment is that I’m not earning enough to hire help. I thought I would be by now, but I’m still working it out, doing everything myself so I can take a profit.

Goals: Organize, for f*ck’s sake! And try to take on some more tag sales.