The finished product of my work, an item of vintage fashion in as good shape as I am able to make it, is what I offer up most of the time. But my vintage world is filled with many things that lead up to that finished product. I’ve been working at home every day for months now (as I’m sure many of you have), and I have lots of time to consider my surroundings.
Pulling back the curtain, here are some of the scenes
I live in a house that is a not so huge for two adults—698 square feet. When all the vintage I gathered was entirely in our house my husband said that we didn’t need insulation, and that he could fall over anywhere in the house and not be hurt! Yes indeed, vintage took up ALL the house. Now my business takes up about half the house, and I have two storage units which have saved our home from being seriously overstuffed.
To give you an idea of the storage space:
A few more scenes
Clothes gathered for a photo shoot, ready to leave storage for my home where they will get cleaned, mended, and steamed or ironed as needed.
My photo studio—a corner of our living room with a white seamless background, lights, and the camera and tripod. The homemade folding screens block all this when it’s not in use.
Some of my own vintage shoes on a rack in the living room—and in boxes, and on the floor.
One of my jars of white vintage buttons. There are jars and drawers of buttons, sorted by color.
A few of my vintage fabric books, and some other books I often reference. There is also a large bookshelf with vintage fashion magazines and more books.
The backyard laundry line with vintage swimsuits out to dry.
When I started my business 21 years ago I had trepidation about having what I knew would be a very large quantity of things to take care of, house, store, fix, clean, curate, understand, package… I love it though, and every bit of this makes me happy.
And my husband appreciates the insulation.