Happy New Year! A new year, a new beginning. Jay and I have been contemplating our new plan for the year. We usually begin the year with a thorough cleaning, painting, and mini remodel. While our plan is still to begin the painting next week, we are torn with our direction to go with the store. Do we continue as we have? ... Do we try a new twist?.... Or do we simply put the "closed" sign on the front windows and start fishing for a living? We are truly thankful for our wonderful customers and in a bad economy, life has been good...but....it has also been very hard. It is extremely difficult to find those fabulous treasures, clean them, paint them, repair them and then sell them for a reasonable amount. I am certain that we are not alone but we are tired. Is anyone else out there tired? So..like I always tell Jay when we get tired,"let's get on our big girl panties and get going".
Next week we will put our thinking caps on and think...think...think....pray...pray....and pray! If you have any ideas...we would love to hear them.
But for today, Happy, happy new year to all. xoxo Alice and Jay

bringing down the house

We're back! After a full week of deconstructing a mid 1800's tenant house, we are back in Sasser to try and reconstruct some nifty new things for the store. This is the house before we started.The front porch roof was the first thing to fall. Jay had to give me a lesson in bringing down a house. We have only taken bits and pieces of a house before, this was my first total demolition. As usual, I started out excited. Then I began to really look at the house. I began to imagine a family(probably a lot like the Ingalls family). I dreamed of how excited the family must have been to be building their own home.

The porch fell and so did my excitement. As I carefully studied the construction of hand hewn logs, giant wooden pegs, and beautiful hand forged nails I imagined strong rough hands of a young man building a home for his bride. The pride that was taken in each beam and board still seemed to sing a faint song that I was certain you could hear if you put your heart close enough! My heart ached a little for this sweet little home.
The walls came down after the tin roof. Can walls really talk? Sure they can. These walls wrapped their warm arms around families for over 150 years. In fact,
there were still a few families living in these walls! This little cotton mouse had quite a comfy home complete with a stash of fresh nuts.

Every single board, peg, and post was heart pine. Arachnophobia? Stay clear of old heart pine houses in the woods. This house had thousands of spiders.
After three full days of hammering and crow barring...the little house is looking bare. But guess what? It is still standing! It is a skeleton of what it was, but Jay and Herbie could NOT bring it down. I am pretty sure that there is one little post that is holding it up, but it is HOLDING it up. I hope that the handsome young man is smiling above as he watches his little handmade home stand up to the test of time. Hopefully we can share a bit of his love in some heart pine tables we are making for the store. Come by and see if you can hear the music....