Highlights from The Duxbury Show

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another, with no loss of enthusiasm.”

– Winston Churchill

Hello, my friends, so sorry I didn’t get a post up on Monday.  I was just soooooo tired from this weekend and from caring for my two sick little guys.  sigh.

This weekend was the Duxbury Antique Show and I’d been sharing makeovers with you all last week.  I’d been hard at work on all these pieces for quite a while.

I had dreamed of writing how successful the show had been! Well, we had a great time, but brought many pieces back to the house with me.

There are a few reasons for low sales.  Maybe it was the weather.  It actually was snowing and windy on the first day.  It might be that people have just had so much damage to their homes from storms here in New England, but whatever the reason the show wasn’t as amazing as I’d hoped it would be.  In that way it wasn’t successful.

But then again in some ways it was.  Here’s what was successful about the show:

I learned a lot!  Luke built fantastic wall for us and everyone (all the other dealers included) thought it was quite amazing.  Picture Luke grinning ear to ear as he put the wall up and then dismantled it on Sunday.  One dealer said he should market these to other dealers!  It was really nice to have walls to control the look and feel of our booth.

It was our goal to have a beautiful booth.  Dan (owner of Gentleman & Daugther) and I wanted a a booth that would meld our styles together and give a feeling like you were entering a space that symbolized our styles.

This was a success!  Warm antique woods, rustic orientals, antique paintings and books mixed in with boxwood wreaths, upcycled furniture and the feeling of spring.  We had so much fun putting this together on Friday night.

We wanted our booth to feel warm and inviting.  A place where people would linger and chat with us.  This was a success!  Getting to meet people who read the blog daily and love my style and reading about my family was so amazing.  Thank you all who were able to come and see us over the weekend.  This blog is truly my journal and my creative space.  I feel so blessed that you enjoy my tutorials and my stories.

Watching you touch and meet: “Lila” and “Fern” (yet to be revealed on the blog) and “Gemma” and “Dani” all meant so much.  You lit up when you saw them and that meant so much to me.  For this furniture I spend time refinishing is so much more than just slapping some paint on.  It is making something that was broken or sad or unwanted into something a little bit more.  Shining it up like new and giving it a second chance.  I’m kind of filling up writing this.

Many of the people who came to the show were looking for real antiques NOT painted furniture and that is okay. We sold a lot of smalls – books, wreaths, smaller antiques and everyone couldn’t resist picking up this sweet goose:

Matthew Mead’s Upcycled Style was also a HUGE hit!

These brass and crystal 1840s candlesticks looked amazing sitting on Dani as did the antique platter:

It was interesting for me to see what finishes people were drawn to.  Many loved this sweet little telephone table which I still need to share on the blog:

As well as this driftwood dresser (also sharing soon on the blog):

Here’s a few more looks at the booth –

Trench art from France:

A HUGE thank you to my husband who built the most amazing wall for us (tutorial on the blog soon) but who also helped me move all the furniture and watch the boys.  Another big thank you to my parents who are always so supportive watching the boys and keeping me inspired.  Thank you to all of you who read the blog each day.  For those of you who lived close enough to visit the show, you made my day!

Luke and I will be doing another show this June in Massachusetts and I can’t wait to share more about that one very soon!  If there were any pieces you saw last week (that caught your eye) or anything in this post let me know.

It is important for me to share the good and sometimes the not so good on this blog.  I like keeping things positive but sometimes things aren’t as successful as you hope.  Not a complete failure but not a complete success.  Life is perfectly imperfect.  This was just a lesson on finding the right market for us.  But we did have a lot of fun!