Branching Out. . . The Long Winded Version

As House of White evolves, Lisa and I find ourselves doing things a little differently than we imagined at the get go.  But I figure to make a business work, and to really figure out what we enjoy doing and what will succeed, we have to be flexible.

We started out making over furniture, we still do that, though our large furniture pieces haven't been big sellers.  Chairs, stools, mirrors and frames sell well. Desks, dressers and other large items, not so much.

Early on we branched into decor items--some vintage, some repurposed, some newly crafted. Vintage item sales are hit and miss, the repurposed and newly crafted items generally sell well--especially our paper products (wreaths, garlands etc.), and our framed items (chalkboards, message boards etc.).  Keeping both our etsy store stocked and our booth full (while balancing our home lives and busy, young, over scheduled children) has been a balancing act!

Add to that, our decorating posts about our own homes and projects (which I have to admit seem to be the most popular!), and you might wonder about us going in too many different directions.  Blame it on an inability to focus on one thing when we love so many--or maybe it's merely ADD.  Probably a bit of both!

So ALL that (along with our previously confessed secret desire to be in party planning) got us to thinking. . . how could we combine all that without burying ourselves?

We have come up with a solution we both love and are very excited about.  In case you have been wondering what the images in the post have to do with and how they relate to House of White, let me elucidate you:

Vintage Prop and Event Rentals.  

We will still continue on as before, but in addition to selling vintage, repurposed and newly crafted home decor (and posting about it along with our own personal quest to decorate our homes) we are beginning to accumulate fun vintage pieces and accessories that can be rented out to those of you locals for your next event! We have also begun adding things to our shop that would lend well to events or photo shoots that can be paired with our rental items (like our new flag banners, or even our paper garlands) And of course we will blog about it so the rest of you can get inspiration on how you might use fun old furniture pieces, or canning jars, or old crates to enhance your party, photo shoot, or wedding.

All the items pictured here are from a recent estate sale Lisa and I stopped by. It was packed with cool stuff.  It was one of those houses where the people clearly lived out most of their lives there and now the children are selling it all off, the barns, cellars, house and all its contents.  I only wish we'd gotten there sooner, they were packed with shoppers--they even had flaggers directing traffic.

We hopped out of our car and bee-lined for a stack of the most gorgeous blue canning jars.  As we oohed and ahhed over the fact that they were only $1 each, a man came over and said, "Those are sold already."  We then realized the jars were on the tailgate of someone else's truck!  Somehow we failed to notice that.  He was nice enough to point us in the direction of the canning shed where more jars were. . . but they were newer and clear.  I snagged one in the house, and a couple other neat jugs in the barn.  We did find a fabulous stack of crates in the canning shed though. . .

They didn't clean the items to sell them, and I didn't clean them before snapping pictures, but can you imagine how they might be used?  If not, let me give you a few examples of what to do with crates, for instance:

Pictures from: 1. The Knot  2. Ruffled Blog  3. September Blue

A lot has to happen before we officially get going in that arena, but I thought I'd give you a heads up and see what you think. . . so. . .

What do you think?


In light of this new venture, we are moving our booth at Camas Antiques.  June 1st we will be relocating to an upstairs locations (which we are thrilled about), but a smaller space--so we can focus on the smaller items, the repurposed and hand crafted part of our business.  We will still offer furniture and vintage items, but less of them, as most of those will go into growing our rental inventory.

If you frequent Camas Antiques, our new space is located where Chloe Rose currently resides (she is moving to a larger upstairs space).  We hope you like the direction we are headed and would love hear your thoughts and opinions.

Happy Monday to you!