oooh shiny!

Found a czech glass yummy today... Opaque red and frosted black glass. Nice.
It's pretty, too large for a brooch (who wears brooches these days?!?) but perfect for a centerpiece for a necklace. Maybe 1930s-40s victorian revival, I love the black on red and the ultra fine details don't hurt either.

The particular factory we were looking at is a no-go.
But we have a few others we are about to follow up on. Apparently lots of investors are buying up defunct factories in Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh is not for me. I do like Philly, but I'm sticking to my NE coastal guns.
My sister has found a set of 8 HM orange side shells. I wish to heck she had found them 2 years ago, but I think there is definitely still a buyer out there for a matched set.

Bumped into one of my old N. Loop customers today, she told me how much she missed my store and asked when I'd be reopening. Had to be honest, Austin is not the place for us right now.
I miss the shop as well, but I really think I made the right choice. I'm seeing too many people hemorrhaging money trying to keep their retail stores open. Any time I question the decision to close the retail space, Jim is very good about pointing out that I closed ahead of the curve and in the black.

Unfortunately this economy is just not conducive to running a business for non essentials. Our NY and LA customer base is really loving us since our overhead is much much lower than our peers in Manhattan and on Melrose and even with shipping it's still a steal, but Austin is not our strongest market right now.

Currently for my business to pay commercial rent and run a retail space in Austin in this economy would be solely for vanity's sake. Our price point is narrow and our design sense appeals to a specific group of designers and decorators. I was never very good at being all things to all people and I never liked carrying new gift items or funky low end pieces in order to appeal to all wallets. Austin Modern is very specific. Our local Austin customers now come directly to our warehouse and buy their goodies and we continue to love them for it. Not being open to the public for browsing has really made the buying and selling experience much more personal and focused anyways.

Since focusing further and farther afield we've: had our fine swag on the front covers and in the pages of several national shelter glossies, been interviewed for several articles on design, had the chance to work with some of the best and brightest interior decorators in America and have had the opportunity to see our hand picked lovelies being used in national ad campaigns and in motion pictures. That's a huge ego stroke, so I'm not as interested in opening another retail space right away.

It has to be the right location, the right layout, the right set up etc... that's a tough find in any city.
---------
in other news

Saw that Homegirls Vintage storefront has gone up for rent and their store space looks mostly empty, though their website is the same as it's always been so maybe they are just moving. Kirk Gallery is also moving for a destination (currently) unknown. Know of 3 other stores that are on the edge of moving or closing but as they have not announced it publicly I'll keep it to myself.

Many restaurants are opening and several car dealerships are expanding... maybe our near future involves a lot of eating out and driving our expanding butts around in new cars.. haha only serious.

Saw "9" - totally RAD.

More warehouse love

My sister has offered to drive from her place to the warehouse to be the first to check it out in person.

It's potentially iffy.. our research into the background of the warehouse shows 2 owners from 1929 until 2006, then it was sold from a family trust to a investment group who has refied 4 times in 2 years. Possibly a distress sale. Might be good. Might be bad. Depends mainly on whether they have done any improvements or if they've been unable to take care of it.
We'll see.

We have 2 different couples as potential permanent on-site care takers if we buy something closer to the coast.

Had a great conversation yesterday with the in-store decorator for a largish dept store chain who has been tasked with revamping their store's look. Feeling good about some of the decisions we've made on the direction of our own shop. I keep seeing all these stores in Austin just suffering with same ol same ol.. this economy has not been great for a lot of people. Fortunately Austin is WAY better off than a lot of other areas.

Today we got a chance to check out Restoration Hardware's attempt at "industrial" style in person. I just haven't been driven enough to bother looking at it until today, the catalog images are enough to tell it's 'just this side of wrong'.
IMHO it's very Disney, the believability is just not there.

It's the best examples of "soulless reproduction". I liked the search lights from across the room, but up close the louvers were over polished, the castings were way too thick and the movements were slow and clunky. Epic Fail.
They might have European designers knocking the designs off but the production quality is third world at best.

Love

Ooops. Yesterday I fell in love with a vacant warehouse in the North East. It's for sale, built in the 1920s, brick, on the waterfront. 58k sq feet. 5 floors, looks like a caved roof according to google satellite.
But still.... It's on the waterfront of a tiny little town. Population: Tiny. It's pretty. It costs less than our 60s ranchette... Must need a lot of work or is full of squatters.. or rats...

Last night over dinner I tried to talk 3 additional couples into buying it as a group summer house, each couple could have 10k square feet (a floor) to decorate, how much fun is that??
In our group we have: an architect, 2 engineers, a real estate agent, a restaurant owner, two accountants and an artist/restoration specialist. We're potentially a dream team.

Actually we were in love with the idea that over dinner in Texas, using an i-phone we could walk the streets of this tiny town in Vt and check out the possibilities of the building.

Mid Century Modernism is dying, the Industrial Revolution is about to take hold again. I think this go around it won't be so much about martinis in Palm Springs as lobster rolls in Montauk.

Restoring a 50s modern is cool, but rescuing and repurposing industrial warehouse space will be cooler... people will start lamenting all the factories that have been torn down to make way for condos and all the warehouses that were gutted to create soulless loft space.

One of our neatest buys our at Round Top was a bank of bronze door mailboxes. 30 mailboxes in a neat 2.5' x 2.5' cube. An excellent side table or unusual alternative to the very popular apothecary cabinet. I think it would make a wonderful jewelry box for someone who really likes their jewelry.

FAB

Fab weekend, Fab week coming up, things are going along tickety boo. Knock wood!

Thursday was hilarious, in 4 hours I avoided a business scam (rampant these days), got my ego crushed, and was contacted about the upcoming magazine article.

Friday was equally hilarious as I went to an estate only to see it being run by "Madame Scab" who has apparently come down hard on her heels. Which made me smile. Completely mean spirited I know, but she really is awful.
If you've seen that Housewives of Atlanta show and seen the Sheree character, you've seen Madame Scab. Super sly, ever financially motivated and the queen of backhanded compliments. If you ever meet Madame Scab, count your fingers after shaking her hand.

Saturday met with new customers, made a sale and looked at possible brother candidates for Fergus.

Sunday went to 6 Flags, NO lines, seriously. 6 Flags San Antonio was practically vacant. If you enjoy going to theme parks but can't deal with lines, I recommend the off season.
We could have rode everything twice and still had free time at the end of the day. Words of advice, the Rattler (biggest wooden coaster in Texas) is not for anyone who doesn't regularly attend yoga class. Serious whiplash. So so glad I had a massage scheduled for today anyways.

Never have I been on a coaster that could be described as "intentionally aggressive". The Rattler is out to hurt you. It will try to break your neck as quickly as possible. And the violent stop at the end seems set up to make the most out of your already damaged neck muscles.
Superman was a supreme coaster, smooth from start to finish. The Poltergeist (unsure WHY it's a poltergeist, but whatever) gets points for sheer speed, but it's curves are too sharp and really makes you feel like you are experiencing a high speed car accident first hand. What is that about? Every other coaster was all sharp angles and high speeds. I guess if you wait for 45 minutes to experience a minute and a half ride, it needs to be OTT. I'm a big fan of centrifuge rides, anything that spins and creates excessive gravitational pull is super cool in my book. I took Jim on the spinning swings. It's a really simple ride, just swings that spin in a circle. Usually they have small versions little kids and the Texas State Fair has one that is 3 stories tall, but it's still just a basic centrifuge ride. My hat flew off and Jim kept looking for it and of course made himself really sick by not always looking ahead. Poor thing. He was sick for the rest of the day.
So that was yesterday.

Today I was allowed to make a couple edits on an article about the shop coming out in a local shelter glossy. LOVE that I was offered the chance to make edits to the rough draft. The last newspaper article we were featured in had a bunch of disjointed quotes strung together with "And" and "but" so I sounded like a drunk decorator on meth. It was sad. I was sad when I read it.

Just came back from an excellent spa day, and now I need to pack a few things to drop in the mail tomorrow before working on a serious deep house cleaning.
Swung by WholeFoods bought some raw lemongrass and that combined with some crushed mint will make the whole house smell like a fresh lemon drop.

Going to Round Top later this week, can't wait! I love that Round Top falls on or near my birthday. It's a nice little bonus each year.