Organized Chaos

Talk about a crazy month at the shop for Panoply!  We've all come to know that January typically centers on organization - at least that's what the magazines try to get us to think - getting holiday decor tucked away, etc. - but I believe we've coined a new activity for the month - organized chaos!

Right after Christmas, we sold a primitive utility cabinet that was originally purchased to display smalls.  Here's a photo (below) of the cabinet's interior, with four of the five shelves.  Needless to say, the fifth shelf was also loaded, as was the floor space at the bottom AND the space above.  We always try to capitalize on vertical space, as booth space real estate comes with a price!  So, On Jan 7th, we unloaded the cabinet, and rearranged all the items pictured below.

Next up:  we located a curio cabinet to move into another area of ours, so that we could display several small items under lock and key.  By Jan 14th, the curio pictured below was situated, and starting to shape up (i.e., fill up).

 By the end of that same week, an underpinning of a new display sold - the crock bench pictured below.  So that prompted a whole new display in the space we had just overhauled the first week of the month!

We then flipped one whole section, wall for wall, open space for open space, during week three of January!  We added a couple new anchoring pieces, (items that can hold several smalls!), and thought we were, once again, well organized.  And each time we do a move, we clean, so our space was being very well maintained throughout. 

New crock bench, open floor section (note chicken coop now standing, behind bench).

Left wall, new wooden crates & vintage wire laundry basket.

Right wall, new washstand.

Lo and behold, we get a phone call this past weekend, saying our center section is about to be disrupted.  Seems normal people out there in the real world are also organizing in their real homes, and one of them wanted to purchase our center anchoring louvered cabinet.  As you can see by the photo below, it's quite the cottage piece, found with its original paint.  And very sturdy - it had a nice shelf inside with adjustable tracking on the sides for varying heights.

  

Center wall, louvered cabinet, holding pillows, and industrial wire baskets on stool - both sold; both holding smalls.

So, for our January finale, we tried to minimize the moves, and opted to slide the cubby pictured below into the vacant space, keeping the vertical real estate maximized.  That blank space on the right of the wall is the breaker box, where staff needs daily access to turn lights on/off.  You can also see (in the details, if you compare to the photo above) that we added lace around the wire laundry basket's edge, and slid the garden urns to the right of the cubby (and stuffed a few pillows into it!). 

It goes without saying that we love what we're doing, and what we did in January is a testament to what they say in this business - move things around regularly, and you will stir interest from customers - it looks like new things every week, just because they get moved around so much!  I hope the months to come are just as good as January seemed to be.  I like organized chaos.

Center wall re-do, with cubby now anchoring the space.