We’re opening a shop!
Saturday, September 20th, 2014
Most men deal with mid-life moments by coming home with a Harley Davidson, a ponytail and someone else’s lipstick on their collar. So when Mr Sassy suggested a few weeks back that maybe we should open a sewing shop, I was convinced his next line was to tell me that he was running off with a hairdresser called Maurice to find himself.
Actually, that’s unfair, and his unpredictability was one of the things that drew me to him all those years back. But the upshot is…we are going to open a shop. Gulp.
We had talked about it earlier this year. In fact we looked into buying the sewing shop in our town when it came up for sale. That plan floundered and we didn’t get it.
Since then we’ve talked about it, joked about it, but never really been serious. And then a friend asked us to look out for potential premises in our town for a cycling shop he was dreaming about. Something great came up within a month, but he’d already found another place.
And that’s when we had the ‘conversation’. Starting our own shop meant making our vision from scratch and not trying to modify someone else’s that we’d bought into. Starting our own shop meant stocking only the things that we (I, actually, Mr Sassy’s idea of fashion is hand-me-ups from his 23 year old step-son) want to sell (the problem with buying an existing business is that the stock that comes with it might not match your vision) and starting our own shop meant the start-up costs and therefore risk, was about a third of the cash required to buy the other existing business. The more we talked the more sense it all made. By the end of the night we’d worked out all the things about traditional sewing shops that we didn’t like, all the simple solutions that will make our business different and most of the associated risks and costs too. It’s amazing what you can achieve when something really grabs you. And best of all there was no mention of Maurice, ponytails or Harley Davidsons.
And the premises are perfect. Right in the middle of our lovely town – Horncastle in Lincolnshire; one large room in a beautiful, listed building, lots of passing trade, a friendly landlord and very good value too. If the worst comes to worst and it all collapses in 18 months we’ll lose less actual money than the cost of a cheap B&Q kitchen and I’ll end up with the best stocked home-sewing cupboard in Lincolnshire. I can’t remember being so excited about anything.
The premises needs quite a bit of work and here are some before pictures (admittedly you need a bit of imagination at this point!) But they’ll be regular updates about what we’re up to here and on Facebook over the coming weeks – so please check back in and share with me what is going to be one of the most exciting and interesting things I’ve ever done.
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