Friday, January 20, 2017

Jan 2017 Booth Refresh: Moving Things, Big and Small

Although this is my first blog post for the new year, I've been busy in real life, organizing, just as many of you have been. My Panoply sisters and I are continuously planning new ideas/themes for our booth space styling. Today, I'm sharing our January 2017 refresh and reorganization of our booth spaces. Grab a drink, and get ready for some armchair shopping!

For the week prior to Christmas, we clustered all our remaining holiday items and ran a 50% off sale. Boxing up and clearing the spaces of the unsold holiday items, along with selling one very large piece of furniture the week after Christmas, allowed for a great starting point for the new year.

I'll skip most before and after comparatives of changes since our last updates, but you can view our last space updates in this post. Instead, I'll share areas of change and new styling since the holiday stagings. Lots of photos ahead!

What we've always referred to as our main booth currently has a good mix of farm fresh and refined vintage items. My sisters and I each shop and sell individually, but we style our spaces collectively. As part of the refined theme, we were anxious to stage an equestrian estate vignette (seen below). We had several prints and smalls to assemble together, which are the central focus in our main booth space.

On the periphery of the main booth's center, we carefully blended the vignettes until it was pleasing to our eyes moving or "roaming" around the space in its entirety. This "roaming eye" view usually dictates how large pieces are placed in our spaces, with smalls following in staging.
When items staged aren't necessarily of the same eras, it is particularly important for us to "space" the vignettes. The above photo is a good example of spacing items of different eras. The frames in that collage represent opposite sides of the booth space.

Other vignettes come together easily.
We knew we wanted to bring in all items farm-related, but we also planned a few more themes. Valentine's Day and Presidents' Day meant all things representing tokens of love, remembrance and patriotism were brought in. Bringing in boxes of smalls to style is at least equally, sometimes more, time-consuming for us as a day of moving furniture.

One of the areas that felt most refreshing in the new year was the space where we clustered all remaining holiday items when we ran our sale just before Christmas. The photo below is a comparative of how the area looked the week just prior to Christmas (top section), and then just one week after Christmas (bottom section)
Blank space can be good! 
We staged a small New Year's vignette for one week on the front corner of this space (left frame of photo below), and then refreshed it again immediately following the new year.
The photo below shows how we selectively staged a few more things in the curio behind the washstand. This is how it currently looks.
The "mantiques" space is another area that now has some blank space, breathing room. The photo below shows the before, or last week of 2016 (top frame) and after, or first week of 2017 (bottom frame). The farm table underpinning much of that space sold the last week of December.
It's funny, how you overlook clutter until you remove it, isn't it? I think we can all relate.
Sister M refinished the desk we brought in to replace the farm table, and she did a fine job in its finish. She sanded and polyurethane-coated the surface and knobs, and chalk-painted and waxed the base.
Below is a before and after photo of the piece she breathed new life into. It was structurally sound, other than a couple wobbly knobs.
We added yet a few more smalls to this area to round out the farm and mantiques theme, in general. The Mail Pouch graphic sign was bought on a winning bid at an auction on New Year's Eve.
The area we call our formal space ended up with changes mostly just in smalls. It appears we have tea being served. The painted firescreen pictured in the bottom frame of the photo following is positioned just to the right of the tea cart in that same space. It is a hand-painted view of Mt. Vernon and the Potomac River, originally sourced at a benefit auction at Washington's historical home place.
Lastly, the collage below shows most of the smalls we staged in that more formal space.
If ever you are traveling through West Virginia, be sure to plan a stop at the South Charleston Antique Mall, 617 D Street, South Charleston, WV. It's an easy exit and re-entry on I-64, Exit 56. Our mall is open 7 days a week, 363 days a year (closed Easter and Christmas). Business hours are M-Sat 10am - 6pm; Sundays Noon - 5pm. If you ever are planning to stop, I'd love for you to contact me ahead of time - I may very well be free to come and meet you, too!

Thanks for your visit, and your comments are always welcome!
Rita C. at Panoply

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