10th Year In Business
Did you know we are almost 10 years old?
This is our anniversary year and I’m going to provide some nostalgia for those of you who may have known of us back then or provide some background for those of you who don’t.
2022 marks the start of Refabulous Furnishings 10th year in business. It is a milestone which at times seems unbelievable to me. Somedays it seems like I opened the doors just yesterday and at other times it feels like a 100 years ago especially when I look at how far we have come. I remember the first day I came into the 6500 square feet of EMPTY. My father looked at me with disbelief and said, How are you going to fill this up? I really could not answer the question. In some ways I still don’t understand how it all happened or how we stayed in business for 10 years, but what I do know is that there was a need in the community and we filled it. It took many years of trial and error, of risk and experimenting and of planning and execution. And what I have learned along the way is that there is A LOT of stuff in this world and we ALL have TOO much of it!!
From a very young age, I have always been attracted to the concept of saving an old box of someone’s discarded treasures and turning it into a new décor item making my space feel stylish. In my 20’s I would romantically and sometimes actually plan to spend my Saturday morning driving to all the local garage sales looking for a fabulous bargain. I unfortunately am not one of those people who loves the hunt….just the find. Back then I was foolishly preoccupied with youthful adventures and rarely made it very far on my weekend garage sale excursions. I needed all the garage sales to be in one place!! Oh what a concept. Fast forward to the years I was researching for the RFF business plan, I knew that there was a need to provide a place where people could find unique home décor and furniture at a reasonable price. But what I really craved personally was a place where I could go and get inspired. After I gave up on the complicated Saturday mornings scouring the area for garage sales, I settled on grabbing a coffee and trip to wander through Pier One or Home Goods, checking the clearance sections for a bargain and some inspiration. That’s where the idea for Refabulous Furnishings came and It is what I hope we have created for you today.
It took more work, sweat and tears than I had expected but isn’t everything that is worth working for…
The first front desk
This is what it looked like before we opened the doors. Actually, I remember opening about 3 weeks earlier announcing that we were taking things. This time is a big blur. I was filled will so much excitement disguised as anxiety or was it the other way around…
Beginning vs April 2014 – The first hanging chair
Images are about 2 years apart.
We filled up fast when you think about it, but it didn’t really feel like it back then and I could fill pages of stories about what we did to get the stuff. All leading up to the day we had so much, we looked around and said what are we going to do with ALL of THESE chairs. One of my first employees, Jason, who is no longer with us, had the BRILLIANT idea to hang them from the ceiling.
The front before the storm of crap that lasted too long
This is the last nice picture of the front of the store till we painted last spring 2021. We would take in so much stuff that we just had to leave some outside. Now, you need to know that I started this store with me, my sister, and bestie Lynn. There was 6500 square feet of space and I had to make rent. So, I took anything I thought I could sell and let people just leave it out back. I wrote a fantastic business plan (took a full year and it was a great plan) but I forgot one important thing, who the heck was going to move all the furniture!?!
For years, the front of the building looked like a junkyard. I hated it, but at the end of the day, 8 hours of moving furniture was enough and something had to give. When I left the parkway, I just averted my eyes from the rear-view mirror…
DIY Center
Here is the DIY center, it was one of the ideas that we hope to bring back to ReFabulous in 2022. It will take a different shape than that of the original but hopefully has the same effect.
There were so many ideas that I had included in the business plan and so many that just evolved from all the conversations that I had from the customers over the years. There were so many people who had “driven by a hundred times” but eventually stopped to check us out. Those conversations shaped what we became and how we run our business today. The views of the people who we wished to serve were at the forefront of my mind and still drive me every day to continue to perfect our business model and to simply create a true win/win.
