How the booth is stacking up

One thing I love about my antique mall is the ability to check daily sales online each evening. When I first moved in, I would live for 6:30pm which is around the times the sales post. My husband dreaded that time, as my evening mood hinged on that report! I have learned that there are good days and slow days, and some nights I even forget to check. Nonetheless, I still get excited when I log on to see if I sold anything. Friday evening I logged on and saw that I had sold the rusty metal cabinet and all but one of the larger suitcases stacked next to it. Yay! But I also knew I needed to get to the mall first thing Saturday morning to fix up my small space. When I got there, this is how it looked:

Things were piled everywhere and there was a big empty space where the cabinet stood. I spent a good twenty minutes just trying to find all the things that were misplaced from the cabinet and also items that just get moved around throughout the course of the week. Then I  started plotting how I would arrange my new merchandise. Before I started bringing it in (with the help of the awesome Austin Antique Mall staff - they are ready and willing to help at all times!), I attempted to redo the burlap wall covering behind the vacant space. I got out my trusty staple gun and started stapling to the wall, though no staples came out. Then I remembered that I was all about safety the last time I used it and I had taken the staples out like the directions said to when it isn't in use. Finally found them in the depths of my 'tool tote' and spent a good five minutes trying to figure out how to load them. Geometry wasn't my best subject and I even would guess I wasn't very good as a toddler with the shapes you had to fit into the right slots. I gave up and put the burlap away for another time. I had too much pride to ask for help on that task. I am already known as the 'blonde Sarah' at the mall (they claim because there are two Sarahs and the other is brunette...), and I didn't need to reinforce the stereotype.

Turns out I didn't really need the burlap to cover the ugly peg board wall as the new merchandise pretty much covered it all. I am loving the 'stacking' technique; with only 77 square feet of floor space, I need to make the most of my 7 by 11 and stack up. Like many of my decorating techniques, I picked this idea up from lots of other creative vendors. Shopping is as much about learning how to display things I already have as it is picking up new merchandise. Here are a bunch of pictures of the new setup.

This is a tree in our neighbor's front yard. Austin has gotten some much needed rain over the last week, and our trees are finally turning. This is seasonally confusing for me. I put the pumpkins away and got out the poinsettias, and now it finally looks and feels like fall.

Well, one week until Christmas! I am very much looking forward to seeing friends and family and taking a trip back home to Illinois. May your coming days be filled with great people and fun times!

Have a chic week,

Sarah