Breezeway Remodel Is Complete!

It's been a busy week on the C'est La Brie's front! As of yesterday, the breezeway remodel is complete. On Tuesday, the upholsterer delivered the furniture which includes this set and a coordinating chair for the desk. This table and chairs has served me very well. I had it in my living room a long time and mainly used it to do jewelry pricing work. They are all 1950s pieces which I purchased separately on eBay years ago. The table was originally a dirty yellow vinyl with blonde legs and had a similar Greek Key design with nailheads on the sides. At the time I had it reupholstered in brown tones which looked good with my previous living room design but it had become worse for wear - the animal print pattern had worn off one of the sides where I sat and did my work. I almost let go of this set, thinking I wouldn't have a place for it after I redecorated my living room. I tried it in the garage, it worked great during the pop-up sales but took up too much room for everyday life. At the last minute I decided to work it into the breezeway and I'm so glad I did. Finally we will have a place where we can work with customers by appointment and our contacts who bring us amazing jewelry goodies. On Saturday, the gentleman stopped by to install the crystal doorknobs for the interior of the room as well as new hardware for the exterior breezeway door and the door that leads to the garage. I highly recommend The Knobbery on Northwest Hwy in Arlington Heights - they are our go-to for hardware of all sorts! Mother is having her kitchen remodeled and the handles she chose are cutting edge and amazing.

Here is a photo of the completed 1950s desk. I rescued this desk from one of our estate sales, it was the original blonde color with rusty brass hardware and no one purchased it during the sale. Len at Ageless Furniture Restoration in Wheeling did an amazing job professionally painting this set. Because it is a vintage piece, it is heavy and well made. It's so sharp and a great piece for the room. When we are not having a pop-up sale, I will be able to put my light box on it and take jewelry photos. This will be way more convenient than grabbing the light box from the lower level.

The breezeway is the home of the signed and higher quality vintage costume jewelry and my next goal is to photograph all of the pieces in small groups. It will be so much easier to see our amazing inventory at a glance! I want to make sure this is done before Vintage Shop Hop so today I enlisted the help of Shelby. I've given her a title - Jewelry Angel - and her job will be to come over once a week to keep the jewelry documented and organized. Finally the breezeway will be used for its intended purpose, it's been a long time coming since we closed our brick and mortar store nearly 6 years ago. It's a big moment for us!

In the upcoming weeks we will have lots to talk about - next Saturday Mother and I are heading to Nashville for the national estate sales conference put on by EstateSales.net. We attended the last one which was downtown Chicago and it was fabulous! I am always looking to grow and improve and although we aren't newbies to estate sales we really learned a lot. Neither of us has been to Nashville so we are heading there a couple of days before the conference starts to check out local haunts and see what we can buy for Vintage Shop Hop. Until next time!