With our doors having been open a month now, I thought it might be a good time to look back on how far this place has come. I shared bits and pieces of the renovation on our Instagram stories, but it’s nice to put everything together in one place and see the big picture!

We started with an empty room, this space had formerly been an antique store, a bait & tackle shop, and originally a feed store. There is a lot of history in this old building and it’s seen lots of questionable renovations over the years, so a complete tear out was definitely needed. 

New drywall & a fresh coat of paint were next... While that sounds like the easy part, hiring out the sheetrock to a company that ended up taking foooorever quickly became frustrating and pushed our dates back. In the end it worked out, and I guess that's how things go when you’re hiring out work.
At this point the holidays were fast approaching and it worked out well to have a giant empty room. Our shop neighbors made great use of the space, The Weathered Thread hosted a holiday maker fair event each weekend in December and it was great to have so many people stop in. We even set up shop one weekend and got to meet many of you before the doors even opened! 

And most magically of all, I was able to host a surprise wedding just a few days before Christmas. With the help of a few friends we transformed the space into a magical winter wonderland. We invited all the guests to a family Christmas party, and Surprise! My cousin got married with family gathered together surrounded by twinkling Christmas lights. Magical!
Once the holidays wrapped up, it was go time! We cleared everything out and got to work. I started bringing in the furniture I had been hoarding in my barn. Lots of furniture refinishing projects were ahead, but I’m proud to say almost everything at the shop has been thrifted, bought second hand, or found for free; and all restored with a lot of patience & elbow grease! 

I painted a minty accent wall, and my father in law got to work building the custom pieces needed for the store. With a few inspiration pictures and a sketch he built the checkout counter just how I had imagined and heavy duty fabric shelves to house all the bolts that were starting to pile up at home. 
Next were the floors. I knew I wanted to update and brighten up the beat up pine board flooring. Sanding them proved to be a challenge since they were so uneven, so I went in search of a paint option that would go over the poly that was already on them. After a bunch of research I decided to use Jolie Home chalk paint. I was sold by the gallon which was helpful, although not cheap. After a meticulous & deep cleaning of the floors it was time to roll on the paint. Most areas took 2-3 coats, and I ended up using about 2.5 gallons of paint by the time we were done. Then I used a clear non-yellowing polyurethane to coat all of the floors. So far they look great, they still have plenty of rustic charm but overall the whole room is brightened up!
Once the floors were all set I was able to start moving in, the exciting part! All of the custom furniture pieces were finished up, including our bowling alley cutting table, and I went to work filling the shelves. 

Overall it was truly a labor of love, I couldn’t have done it without my husband, friends, and family chipping in every step of the way!