Just switch it maybe a little bit?
We’ll call it leaving on a high note. In spite of the wild ride of 2020, we’ve had a great year in revenue. You stayed home and you wanted that home to feel homier than ever and we are so thrilled that SHOP TEOT could be a resource for your home during this crappy year.
And for me personally… what a crappy year it has been.
So, it is time to take another direction.
Bigger? Better? Stronger & Leaner? Less Stressed!???
It will be really tough to summarize the events and thoughts that have led Sarah and I to this huge announcement for our business. But let me indulge anyway.
In short, we are closing up our flagship brick and mortar shop in Southern Pines, NC.
Sarah and I met in 1998. In college, we decorated an apartment together that really blew the socks off of our peers. It was a special historic home that had been rehabbed by our eccentric Turkish landlord who was flipping the entire neighborhood into student rentals. We took that shared love for historic homes and decor and manifested a dream. By 2008, we had a name and a URL and The Estate of Things was officially born. We wanted to build toward retail, and a brick-and-mortar shop was the pinnacle of our shared fantasy.
In 2016, after selling online via Etsy and experiencing a taste of National attention for our blog, we realized the dream. We rented a little shop in a tucked away corner of the courtyard on E. Pennsylvania Ave in Southern Pines, NC. Honestly it felt like serendipity. So much aligned that made that possible for the two of us and the future felt really bright. We jumped in emotionally and naively. There was no downtown Southern Pines shopping data to comb through to get a sense for what to expect regarding revenue, foot traffic. We winged it. We expected tourists, the equestrian community, neighboring Pinehurst, and dynamic local Southern Pines and Military families to be the staples of our community. We personally felt there was a hole that we could fill with beautiful, forward influenced and eclectic home goods from around the globe.
I’m so proud of the way that TEOT has pivoted throughout the course of our years in brick-and-mortar. We have faced a few major personal shifts behind the scenes and we maintained every time. We moved locations from that tucked away courtyard, out front and center on Broad Street. We added a second “booth” style location at the Mart Collective in Venice, CA. In 2019 we started entertaining other like-minded brands in our shop as vendors and we really started to feel a community develop.
All the while, the personal hits kept coming. And then the global pandemic hit.
We, TEOT and YOU, all had a really wild ride in 2020. So I’m sure you have had your own moments of personal reflection.
Frankly I thought it would be what put us under and gave us the final out, but instead the shelter scene roared and you shopped! Thank you.
TEOT SOPI saw 50% revenue growth in 2020. We attribute this to the boom that the entire home industry is experiencing throughout the “Stay at Home” lifestyle of Covid. We also believe it timed well with our lovely group of vendors who brought in the level of energy our community needed and wanted to see in a shop like ours. We think our years of being around finally cemented us as a staple in the community. We have been feeling really grateful for that welcome.
Despite all the things that we could take encouragement from and plough forward with, we are taking a step away instead.
Simultaneous to the March and April shut down of the shop, I had a life saving surgery procedure and received the news that my 2019 Cancer diagnosis had evolved to Stage Four. It became imperative to give 100% of my energies to my treatment, leaving only room to focus on caring for my 2 year old daughter and exploring the aspects of a life that bring joy and positivity. I focused inward on mortality, spirituality and full body health. I’d love to chat with you about it if you are interested.
In my time, going where the water flows, I was thinking a lot about the stresses of life and alongside Sarah, we realized that TEOT “the dream” and TEOT “the reality” had a chasm for both of us. We want to take some time to channel energies toward Real Estate, Renovation and New Construction design. All of which, we have been doing simultaneous to running the day to day of the shops. All of which have proven a better use of time and energy.
My husband is into brewing and we were once at a brewery having a chat with the head brewmaster about what it took to run one’s own brewery. He said that the fun part is only about 5% of the work and the rest is just simply hard work. We were really feeling that at that moment.
Sarah and I have each carried the fantasy of SHOP TEOT being our livelihood for so long that it has become our identity. That identity manifested itself in the flagship location of SHOP TEOT in Southern Pines, NC. It required a big shakeup like 2020 to help us see, that after all the years of fantasizing, the efforts were more draining than the outcome was worth, from a business perspective.
So, it’s time to pivot yet again.
Sarah will be taking time to focus on a successful Real Estate career. This role is expanding to include creative direction in new construction.
After my difficult year, I am looking to focus my energies as well. I am headed to pursue a Masters in Interior Architecture and Design. I guess it was a bucket list dream after all. I also have a number of renovations going at the moment plus my own new construction design work. We hope to use the new freedom we will feel from managing the shop to get back into sharing what we’re up to behind the scenes. Make sure to follow us on Instagram and sign up for our newsletter.
So much love to you for being here with us. If you are reading this, we consider you a part of our family. Let’s keep in touch!
