Happy New Year a month late! Sorry about the lack of communication, but the end of 2015 was swamped and I needed some time to regroup.

You may be wondering what’s cooking in the Reclaimed Home pot. Well, there’s the plan and then there’s the reality. The plan was to take a couple of weeks off to relax and then get cracking on freshening up the investment property in Rockaway. I took about a week off, then started on some custom jobs for other folks. So Rockaway, not quite happening yet, although I’m using it as my work space.

Do I miss the shop? Just the people, not the daily routine of being there. I’m enjoying the freedom even though I’m busy. At least I have the flexibility to make my own hours again. Still doing the same work for clients on furniture, so that’s the same. But there’s also renovations which make me feel so macho. Lovin it!

Rockaway house goes on the market this Spring. Hopefully it will sell and then the plan is to purchase another property for rehab. It may be a flip or I may want to sit around and eat bonbons while being a slumlord for a few years.

Whatever the case, I’ll do my best to keep some informative posts going. Social media has killed the blog, at least for me anyway. Hell, I’d rather take a picture or write a couple of words than make any real effort. Oh, gotta go…my bonbon delivery is here! Laters.

We have an announcement to make! This is all good, don’t worry. In the interest of growing our custom and location services, we will be cutting the hours at the brick and mortar shop in Crown Heights. It’s just too much of an ache in the posterior to sit there doing retail all day when we can be accomplishing so much more by expanding our work area to include the front of the shop.

This doesn’t mean we’ll never be open for business. Our new hours starting Monday, May 18th will be as follows:

Monday through Friday: By appointment only

Saturday and Sunday: 11-6

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND: Open Saturday 11-6. Closed Sunday

It remains to be seen, but for the most part, we’ll probably be focusing more on the handmade and custom and have fewer tshotskes and vintage pieces. Buying and selling vintage has been fun, but it may not be worth holding onto as we get busier with other jobs.

So, stop by during the weekend or set up an appointment to come check us out!

Two days late on this one, but April 12th was the one year anniversary of the Reclaimed Home brick and mortar shop! Yes, that’s around the same time the Reclaimed Home blog died. What can we say? It’s tough to keep up with blog posts when every free minute spent not shopping and creating is somehow taken up by bookkeeping. Biggest time and money sucker around…keeping up with those damn taxes!

Anyway, let’s look back on the year that was and how this thing will evolve.

Here’s what we’ve learned.

Keep inventory moving. Unique creations sit longer than as-is. All of those wonderful, colorful pieces that pop out on Pinterest? There aren’t all that many people in the world who are both daring enough to display them in their homes and who have the money to pay for the work involved. Inexpensive brown furniture sells better, at least with the local hipster Brooklyn crowd. Being able to price pieces under $250 is key to getting it out the door within days. If something is damaged, we now try to just paint those sections of it instead of the entire piece.

Services are where it’s at. For our first year, we concentrated on making the storefront work while taking on a few custom jobs here and there. Those jobs were gold! We were being hired to do what we’re good at and actually got paid for it! What a concept.

Oh, do we hate shipping. Packaging shipments takes almost as much time as doing those taxes. And all those refunds we had to do online because people couldn’t read that furniture was local pickup only? You can’t imagine how many people assume a small company will ship $150 dresser for free when it’s written in bold caps that there is no shipping. Oh, pul-eeze.

Ok, so moving forward:

A storefront isn’t for us. Original business plan was for a bigger space. More large salvage pieces. More work space. We thought it would be great to have a storefront so people can come in and shop, but it’s actually been a hinderance (by lexi). The lease is up at the end of 2105 and we’ll try to find more of a raw warehouse space.

The new space will hopefully be a mixed use or commercial property that will be purchased, not rented. We’d like to be able to cut out some space for fellow artisans and industry folks. Since affordability is a factor, it may not be in Brooklyn. If Rockaway house doesn’t sell, we may be stuck renting.

A couple of upcoming events that we’re excited about:

May 8-10. We’re taking part in Bklyn Designs! We do believe that they will give us a certain amount of comp tickets, so look out for that!

May 16: We’ll be just one of the Crown Heights venues offering 20% for Brooklyn Immersion participants. This event is sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery and Brooklyn Based. Tickets are $25.

Who’s idea was it to open a vintage shop at 9am? Nobody comes in before 10am. Nobody! So, that’s why as of March 18th, we’re going 10-6 Wednesday through Sunday. And…if it’s busy at 6pm any day of the week once this awful weather is over (Will it ever be?), we won’t be kicking anybody out.

Just wanted to let y’all know.

We were chatting the other day about all the furniture that has come through our shop and realized that we never did before and after shots. So, here you go!

The headboard bench (above) is still available for sale, which puzzles us to no end. Everybody loves it, but nobody has taken it home yet. Seems to be a space issue with Brooklyn apartments. Angel the Carpenter made it out of a headboard and shipping pallet.

This copper lined tub was in the store the day it opened. It took lots of scrubbing and some paint and stain to get it to look beautiful. It left us for New Jersey. 

Ah, the little stool. The wood was solid but damaged, so we stenciled a nice design to freshen it up. Took longer than we thought to sell, but it did indeed find a loving home.

The mid century dresser was in pretty bad shape when we found it. A couple of drawers were busted, the veneer was chipping. Lots of work went into this one. It went to New Jersey. 

Still have the Warhol Mickey Mouse mid century coffee table. We find that very colorful furniture sits longer than neutral. We also find that square coffee tables don’t sell as well as rectangular. Bad combo. Lots of work went into this resin covered collage and now the price is down to $110 to move it along. 

Another Angel design. This dresser was the feature in our shop on Grand Opening day! Everybody loved this dresser, but it had to find the right person to buy it. It went to a woman in Manhattan after a few months in the store. 

This desk was put online in as-is condition for a decent price. After a couple of weeks, we fixed it up and stenciled parts of it. Then it sold within a few days to a woman in Park Slope. 

We love to do trunks. It’s a straightforward restoration and they always sell quickly. The ebony stained trunk didn’t even last a full day before a couple from, I believe, Williamsburg (?) claimed it. We are all about ebony stain these days. We’ve also done several trunks with the usual golden and red oak stain.

You’re wonderful. Do you think we’re wonderful too? Well, it’s time to brag about us on The Internets.

It has come to our attention that reviews matter. It’s great that our Etsy and Ebay customers have our back, but we need The Google and The Yelp. Especially The Google because that’s what keeps us on the map. The Google Map. The one we only appeared on this week because we figured out that we have to work at it.

What’s in it for you? You’ll be performing a mitzvah! Because you’re a nice person. And you are wonderful.

Also, we’ll be your best friend. Just go to our Google page and click “Write a review”. Please. Pretty please and thank you.

We let a milestone pass by without acknowledgement last week because it’s post holiday vacation time. January 9th marked the one year anniversary of obtaining the lease on the brick and mortar storefront. Although the Reclaimed Home offline shop didn’t officially open until April, we started to sell some pieces while doing the renovations. So, Happy Anniversary to Reclaimed Home!

Ah, let us reflect on the year past as we look forward to some changes for 2015….

Mistakes. We made a few, but then again, too few to mention. All in all, it wasn’t a bad first year in business. There is one more year on the lease and at this time, we’re thinking that we don’t need a store front. It would be nice to have more space and less obligation to sit there waiting for people to come in. So, perhaps 2016 will bring a bigger and better space…by appointment only.

But let’s not jump that far ahead.

We found that unpainted furniture sold quicker than our fab painted creations. Perhaps partly because of price but also perhaps, people are more conservation when it comes to furniture. So, fewer fully painted pieces and more as-is or restored wood merch coming up. Custom orders make more sense in this area.

We want to expand on our services. That’s a no brainer. The location jobs we had last year worked out really well. The plan was to cater to everyone with this business and we succeeded in that. The shop consisted of mostly very affordable furniture for those on a tight budget while we were able to provide top quality artistic services to clients who were able to pay us for said speciality services. We LOVE the service aspect of the business!

Events and classes. Yeah, only had a few events. We didn’t get around to the classes. The space is kind of small, so we’re still trying to figure that out. Gotta work on that DIY coaching idea though!

So, about this sale…. Some pieces of furniture have been with us from day one and need to go. We’re going to drastically cut prices by this weekend and keep them down until the shop is emptied of older merchandise. Since we’re closed until Wednesday, we’re not doing cuts until then, but if you’ve been eyeing something all this time, feel free to make an offer now.

We’ve decided to close the shop for Boxing Day / Day after Christmas. So… closed on Thursday and Friday this week. Also, we won’t be open on New Years Day.