ONCE UPON A TIME...
living in Minneapolis with a degree in Personnel Management and 16 years in the corporate Human Resources world, my husband and I had a great opportunity with his job to move to St. Cloud MN. I commuted to Minneapolis for a year and then spent another year doing freelance HR jobs in St. Cloud until our first son was born. Wanting to stay home with him is when the wheels started turning about trying something different.
I’ve always loved CHANGE, I’ve been a bit resourceful and enjoyed crafting. As the years went by I became a salvager and refinisher. I loved going to estate and garage sales to find something I could redo for our home. To afford a new look in the house, I sewed curtains, made pillows, painted furniture, recovered chairs, and rearranged the furniture ~ a lot! My husband would come home from a biz trip not sure what he would walk into, literally. I even took a stab at reupholstering. I recycled my old porch curtains and recovered a comfy old chair & ottoman (with a lot of help from Mom!) What was I thinking??? The fabric was a flowered STRIPED pattern. Never again!!! Although I still love fabric, I’ll stick to recovering cushions etc with an electric staple gun.
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This is back when I was into folk art & country
Forest Green & Navy anyone? |
Initially I used a corner of the basement workshop and started mass producing Christmas decor for fall craft shows in 1990. Back then stenciling was big so I used this checker board stencil and painted right on the concrete block walls. Ta Da the CHECKERED CORNER name was born.
I made up some business cards, rolled a checker board stamp on everything I made and away I went. I learned very quickly that I get bored doing several of the same item AND the packing, loading, hauling, setting up is exhausting. Both of those things took the fun out of creating for me. I did church bazaars, craft shows in high schools and outdoor festivals for many years. Honestly it’s why I’m not a “show girl” today. WHEW! 
St. Cloud ~ Minnesota
Another move north for us to Duluth MN put the Checkered Corner business on hold, but not for long. As some of you know, once you get hooked on creating and repurposing you don’t just stop. I did a few shows & festivals and then started researching a new biz model called an
Occasional Market. A high school friend of mine was in biz hosting that concept in the Minneapolis area so I checked it out and decided it was definitely for me. She is still thriving by the way with
Haupt Antiek Market- Yea Deb!
hauptantiek.com Turns out there was an occasional sale biz in Duluth too that inspired me into action now called
West Tischer Cottage. Krista & Dana are still cranking out creative home & garden decor & more every month.
https://www.facebook.com/wtcottage/
Duluth ~ Minnesota
Hermantown ~ Minnesota
I decided to organize into the occasional market biz model WHICH IS STILL MY FAV!! and open a few weekends during the first summer at my house. My EVER supportive hubby and both my boys invariably got involved in the process.
I actually paid my youngest, Connor, to pull nails out of pallets…I’m sure he has fond memories of that… HA! Grant, my oldest was my sanding machine when he was about 10 years old pictured here.
My salvaging and collecting soon filled the garage and beyond! I built & worked on furniture in the garage and stored things there.
A LOT OF THINGS! as you can see.
My first “storefront” was in our backyard, deck and screen porch. I loved not having to load & haul goods around and just set up shop at home.
I closed for the winter and opened the porch on the 3rd weekend each month during the next summer season.
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I've always loved adding KID stuff to my displays. Back then I found some great scores of chairs and tables that kept me stocked for months.
I still gravitate to childrens books and decor. |
Having a few acres at my disposal it was easy to bring nature into my displays
Thanks for reading on ...
MORE celebrating, pics & stories
coming soon in PART TWO
