One month since our virtual doors opened, our little adventure began and all is going well. We are very much enjoying meeting and joining in with a very lively community of collectors and sellers in both Vancouver and the lower mainland.
I definitely don't think we realized the time it takes running a small venture, from sourcing items, cleaning and fixing, staging, photographing, posting, sharing, answering questions and delivery, it really eats up your nights after a full day at work. We already long for the days, where this would be our whole day and we can focus our energies fully on our passion.
We've met so many new people this month with the same love of all things vintage and home decoration, here's some of their stories.
Vintage school chairs, who's previous life was seating members of the Freemason's in the New Westminster temple during meetings, find a new home with Tisah @drifterthebrand in the new redesign of the Mackenzie Beach Resort in Tofino, Vancouver Island. We can't wait to bump into them again, go camping or maybe stay in on one of the lovely renovated airstream http://mackenziebeach.com/vintage-lux-airstreams/ . Seeing them in situ the new dining space, being seen and enjoyed in a public space, after being hidden in a secretive world for so many years will be great!
More school chairs made their way this time from Wally & Sharon's, 'Princess and the Pea' B&B in Murrayville, Langley.
This now sits as a heritage building & the oldest B&B rest stop in the province of BC, hosting guests since 1874. When the settlers arrived in BC, the Murray's were one of the first, clearing the land and building a hotel for the adventures on the gold rush to the Cariboo gold.
The chairs previously used in weddings & events at the B&B, make their way into the city and now find themselves in Amadine's new home, originally is from Sète in the South of France. Read the tale of Princes and the Pea's here http://www.princessbnb.com/Story/
Image by Langley Times. All rights reserved
Our most extraordinary sale began by email request from Alex, [Brass Crane & Repeating Loon Wall Hanger] she presented a tricky quote, requesting shipping to the Island of Bonaire, in the Dutch South Caribbean Islands. Not only a long way to send one of our first sales, but they also don't have postal codes on the island, which makes it so much fun trying to get a postal quote for:)
Following some chatting through messenger I asked Alex to email me her address, when an email came through there was something familiar about the name, but I didn't think anything of it until later on that evening. "I know an Alex K*** you don't know me do you?". Having only chatted with info@jonesgeneralstore.com, to now hearing my first name she replied, "I did hangout with a Gwyn when traveling in Northern Malaysia 8 years ago!". What are the chances that we had not only met in the first place, but all those years later her little sister would hear about our store [who is living in the UK], sending a link to our website to her big-sis, for her to make a purchase from the Caribbean, all while not knowing the connection. Needless to say we were surprised and more determined than ever to make sure we could deliver to this challenging location. We can't wait to see our products in their new tropical home when they arrive by freighter from Miami. One of the reasons we do this is to preserve the history of the items we save, but in this case it's story it self was reuniting old friends.
These old birds will finally migrate to a warmer climate
Searching for a vintage typewriter for her 9 year old daughter, Sonia had been an ongoing struggle for Anna-Maria, finding a working old machine, which still looked good and functioned for small hands was the challenge. So when we found each other, we had to make sure it was the right fit for this young writer of the future. Anna and her husband asked if we could send a few more images to confirm this indeed was the right one for their daughter, so we obliged and went one further and made a little video to help them :)
The Brother Echelon 89 makes its was to Lynn Valley earlier in the month, we look forward to hearing some of the stories Sonia comes up with in the future, you heard her name her first gang!
