I was supposed to go to a movie with my mother. We had our date, time, and restaurant nailed down, so all we had left to do was agree on which movie to see. The problem was that there was no movie in theatres that either of us cared about in the slightest. But...Non-Stop was due out the following weekend, and neither of us can resist a Liam Neeson movie. So, we rescheduled. That is why I was at home at 2pm on a Sunday for the first time in months (I am a 7-day a week workaholic), and even more importantly, why I was bored.
When one is crushed by the weight of boredom, there are several potential cures: television, a good book, trolling the Internet for good junk, or actually leaving the house to go junk shopping. I decided to go with Option 3, and thereby ended up on the eighth wonder of the world: Craigslist, that magical artificial universe of junk, both good and bad. And, occasionally a place to find real estate.
We Blackbirds have dreamed of opening a store since day one, and I am the one who likes to torment us both by looking at commercial real estate online about once a month. We inevitably fall in love with a place that is geographically and financially impossible, and then we end up depressed and elbow-deep in pizza. So, on this particular Sunday at this particular time, because I am a masochist, I clicked on Real Estate. The very top listing was for a 1300 square foot shop in a nearby town for a ridiculously low monthly rent. I immediately called the other Blackbird, who ordered me to instantly-right-this-minute-why-are-you-wasting-time call the number on the ad. Two hours later, we were sitting in the car on a deserted street waiting to meet a strange man that we had met via Craigslist. And while we waited, we fell in love with our building.It was old, with blue paint peeling down in huge strips. The dark windows looked sad, and the door was painted a psychedelic lime green. But we loved it, and as long as it didn't have a giant hole in the ceiling and snakes writhing on the floor, we were going to have it. The very next day, the lease was signed, we had keys in hand, and suddenly we realized that we had less than two months to be up and running in time for the local antiques festival (a perfect weekend to open a vintage shop, right?). This is when the blog died. It is also when we stopped sleeping regularly, speaking to our families, or eating vegetables.
After a lot of paint, a couple of new ballasts, and every possible Money Pit moment that you could imagine, we managed to get to what I would now lovingly refer to as Hell Week, during which we went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, went to work, went to the shop, stayed up all night, and pretty much survived on pizza and Snickers bars in order to get everything cleaned, priced, and placed for opening day. But we made it, and the shop has been buzzing like a little baby bee for two months now.
122 W. Swannanoa Ave.
Liberty, NC 27298
336-622-4775
