Brooks and Company Grand Re-opening April 13 th 10a-4p !
We are so excited , we can barely contain ourselves !
All my life , I have been a little different and marched to the beat of my own drum . I never really cared to follow the crowd too much . If I liked it , I liked it , I could care less if it was the norm . I didn ’ t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth and had to do without a lot of the typical childhood luxuries . I loved to read , write and dream of becoming successful . HMMM … Sounds like the MLK speech ― I have a Dream ‖ doesn ’ t it . ( Laugh out loud ) Seriously I have always enjoyed the challenges that corporate America has to offer but it was never as enjoyable as the challenge of doing things differently . I ’ m a complete girly , girl so fashion , beauty , home décor , and furniture are the things that make me feel good . So , please let me share our journey with you . It has been such a wonderful experience from the very beginning . I remember sitting down with Matt and explaining to him that even though we both had full time jobs that I wanted to start on on-line business for his furniture restoration . He kind of looked at me sideways and said , well let ’ s go for it . He ’ s always been so supportive that way . We came up with the name , created the website and began trying to market it . We had a few orders and got the bug of excitement ! Then a year later I came back to him and told him that I wanted our things to have a store front and I thought the best way for us to do that was to place our items in an antique consignment / vender arena , again , he gave me that sideways look and said , go for it baby . We looked at spaces downtown and spoke to a few owners , and when we had decided on a space , the store owner offered a discount if we took two spaces . Matt laughed and said that we only needed one space because we only had one business ; I said well , I ’ ll take it . I ’ ve been wanting to open up a boutique anyway . So we shopped for paint , fabric and decorations and began our first store front adventure . We were excited with every sale and worked like crazy in every free moment on new pieces to put in our stores . We never really ― made ‖ any money in this arena but I always felt we could if we were on our own . We were about nine months into our consignment / vender adventure when I decided I would leave my full time job in an effort to eventually expand our store front options . We looked around town but kept being gravitated back to the first place we looked which was the historic Coca-Cola building . This building was amazing to Matt as he has been a huge Coca-Cola fan and collector for years ! We met with the building owner and he didn ’ t have a space that was affordable and large enough for both my clothing and Matt ’ s furniture but we really wanted to be in this building . I decided that I would do away with the clothing aspect of my boutique and scale down to handbags and accessories until the opportunity to expand again came back up . We did just that , it was very scary . We gave up a full time salary for me to play around with my passions and had no idea if we were actually putting every hard earned penny we could get our hands on into a business that would sink as fast as the titanic . Every step of the way Matt would tell me , baby , I trust you , I believe in you and you are far too stubborn to fail , just go for it . We opened and were so proud that right out of the gate we seemed to be getting enough support from the community interest in our items that we were able to pay for the store with the store . I know that doesn ’ t sound like much to most people but understand , Matt and I didn ’ t have a huge nest egg to fall back on , or rich parents who would bail us out . It was just us , our hopes and dreams . For the store to sustain its self was truly a blessing to us and more than we dreamed it would do this soon . The space we leased was very small , ( actually about the size of our dining room ) we knew we would have to expand one day but we were excited and scared to do that . So much has happened in the short amount of time since we opened our doors as an independent store . We now carry one of the largest selections of handbags around . We have a very extensive selection of jewelry . We brought in our own label of bath line . We have brought in our own label of candles and this magazine . There are still a number of things we have in the works , so much more is to come from us ! The space across the hall from us in our building was coming available for rent , we looked at it and looked at it and talked about it over and over . I was dreaming about it . It was so much more space than we had . I was designing it in my mind as to what I wanted to make it look like . Finally one day while I was working our store , Matt called me and said ― Baby , I know you want that space , I trust you , I believe in you and I know we can do this together ‖. I almost fell out on the floor . I called the very next day to speak to the building owner and thankfully , he was very supportive of us breaking our current least and moving to the larger space . So , now we are here at our yet again GRAND- RE-OPENING , we are over the moon with excitement and hope that you can join us in this celebration of not only our small business but the support of the community which makes it possible , and the dreams of other little girls out there that see themselves as future business owners .