t h e    m o d e r n    c o t t a g e    s t a l k s   t h e    m l s

I took the week to rest, have several meetings with the other shop girls, redecorate my house a bit and make some possible MAJOR decisions regarding the future of the store. There might be a move and a name change coming soon. I can't wait to share the details with you all in the coming weeks. Don't worry there will still be a Modern Cottage Company but it will be a division of an even better store-stay tuned.

Do you want to see a cute new house that popped up on the mls today?

listing

Going back to the topic of redecorating my house. I took some of my pieces down to the shop and bought/traded some pieces with the other girls in the shop. I can't wait to show you what I bought.

{I just need to clean my house so I can take pictures for you :)}

Have a wonderful holiday weekend.

-Alison 

source

I am working on this-this week. Being thankful and happy.

I am taking a little break from painting, decorating and I am going to live more in the moment with my husband and kids and try to clean my house. I also need to sit down and figure out my future business goals and what it looks like going forward {my shop lease expires July 15th}. So this week is a lot of prayer about the direction of my store and if I will stay in the current space or move to something smaller.

Stay tuned!

-But-

I am so thankful for everything- and happy!!!!

n e w     s h o p     p h o t o s

-

a    d e s k   r e v e a l 

{and a pity party}

I wanted to start out with  some new pictures of the shop. I worked 12 hours yesterday with some of the other shop girls making the space bigger.

First we will start out with my store front. 

I added the canopy and potted plants.

Another view-do you see that desk? Do you want to see more of the desk?

I painted it a light blue grey, but kept the wood drawers. 

It is in the shop now!

Here is a look at the walkway of the market. Those cool bikes once belonged to Devon now they belong to Katy {our friend from The Classic Farmhouse}. I love it when she stops by our shop.

Here is a look at Crystal's store.

Kennesha's store.

Devon's store.

Erin's store.

Merri's store.

And last but not least, Holly's store!

Keep in mind I can't answer questions about the other shops besides my own, so head over to their blogs to find their contact information. Some of them ship {not me unfortunately :(}!

Now to my pity party. 

I am sort of embarrassed even bringing this up, but this morning was rough. 

Let me just say it is hard being a mom. I have been a stay at home mom, a work away from home mom, and now a mom that works out of her house and owns a store mom.

It is all hard.

Some people think that because I work out of my home and control my hours I don't work. 

Or that  because I do something creative it isn't work. 

It is. I am hard on myself. I have the most amazing partners in the store and great customers, but there are times when we have difficult customers.

I lug furniture around all day. I always have paint on me and I am usually dirty and sweaty {on the non-working at the shop days}.

I work hard. I work six days a week and I am hard boss.

I don't get paid sick or vacation time.

My house is a mess, I haven't done laundry in a week, and my car looks like I live out of it.

BUT-

I get to take my kids and pick them up from school everyday.

They get to come visit me at the shop on Saturdays.

I get to be creative. Did I say I get to be creative? I mean I can do whatever I want and I LOVE that!

I have met the most amazing clients that have become friends.

My husband is my number one fan.

I couldn't ask for better shop partners. I adore them and they inspire me so much.

BUT-

Today I had a pity party for myself in my car after I dropped off my kids at school. You see, I was up late with the kids at the store helping the other girls in their spaces. So I had to get up at 530am this morning and get my son's science project ready. Then get the kids up for school and I couldn't find clean uniform shirts. Then Cooper couldn't find his shoes and Camden had a dirty face {not sure why since she had just taken a bath}. We scrambled out the door and I dropped them off at school after explaining to the teacher what Cooper's really bad science experiment was.

I cried in the car-total pity party. 

I have so much pressure on me right now and I know it is self inflicted.

So I spent the day with the girls at the shop and I feel better now.

But just know-I am far from perfect and now and then a good pity party is in order.

a   n e w   e n t r a n c e 

I had a hectic and fun weekend. Along with Mother's Day, it was my son Cooper's 7th birthday. 

The store has been busy! I am so thankful for the many customers that keep coming back to see us week after week. 

We continue to get bigger and every week there are SO many new items added.

Yesterday I woke up with an idea to make my area in the store a "mini store". 

To create this, I wanted to add a definite entrance to my store.

I pretty much had all of the supplies I needed to create a new entrance. Four doors {two hinged together} a long board, a small cabinet door, and paper for the scallops.

I hinged two doors together, nailed a board attaching the two forward facing doors, hung the sign from the board, and then added my scallops. 

Easy peasy!!! The whole thing took me less than an hour to put together.

I plan on adding a fabric canopy from the ceiling attached to the new store front-maybe sometime this month.

Yesterday I hung a sign Merri made, from an old ladder. This marks the entrance to the rest of the vintage market where the other mini stores are.

I am on a roll this week. I painted a desk {and it turned out stunning} yesterday, and now I am working on a white dining table and three mirrors. I might also get some pillows sewn but I will see how much time I have to get it all done before my shift at the store on Thursday.

Look out for my post sometime later this week on the new desk I painted.

m c c    s t a l k s    t h e    m l s 

I am excited about todays home tour because this house is within walking distance to my home and it is one that I have always wanted to know what it looked like inside. 

The exterior is stunning-such a special home.

What is even cooler about this home is that it has views of the water and directly across the street is the most beautiful Catholic church. 

view listing here

If there is an open house for this beauty I am going to check it out.

Come back tomorrow for a quick look at what is new in the store!

f i n a l l y   a n o t h e r   g r e y   o n e

There was a time when I was sick of painting grey dressers. It seems like all I did was paint grey dressers. Then I sold them all and started painting everything blue-now I am sick of blue! 

So I brought grey back. 

My space in the store is happy with more grey-weird but true. There was a little too much color going on for a while.

Sorry I don't have a before picture for this beauty. But it was just a dark dark stained wood, you can imagine that right?

I painted the piece with a light grey enamel paint. I didn't prime the piece first. I had a feeling that the enamel paint would adhere nicely to the wood and I was right. I did wait three weeks for the paint to cure enough for me to tell if I was going to need a top protective coat {of wax or a poly}. After a ton of distressing {with a sanding block} I decided I didn't really need to seal the piece. 

The paint is pretty indestructible {it was very hard for me to distress it}.

The inside of the drawers are beautiful. I did spiff them up a bit with, just to bring out the beauty of the wood. I did need to air the drawers out for a few days after I used this product.

find it here

I accidently got some on the outside of the piece when finishing the drawers and I loved how it brought out the dark wood from under the paint {where I distressed}. I am totally going to do this for other projects. Can you see how dark the wood is under the distressing? The Restor-A-Finish really helped the wood pop out.

The dresser has this cool marking on the back. I never paint a piece that has interesting markings on the backside.

The shop was open yesterday but Kennnesha and Crystal were working for the rest of us girls.

It was fun to come in to the store today and see what sold and rearrange my space.

This week I am finishing up a white buffet and some chalkboard doors.

Last week I did a little vignette for the front window-I love doing this.

-Alison-