I’m so grateful that my husband and I were able to achieve our goal of opening our own antique store.
- It’s something that we wanted to do for a long time.
We both worked full time jobs. In our free time, we would hunt for treasures. We spent the weekends driving all over the place. We searched yard sales, flea markets, estate sales, auctions and anywhere we might find a deal. This led us to accumulating so many items that we began to sell online. The plan of opening a shop sort of happened naturally. We didn’t realize how much time and effort the shop would require. At first, we tried to still work our regular jobs. We attempted to handle most of the everyday tasks, such as accounting, cleaning, maintenance and janitorial service. Emptying the waste baskets, dusting, vacuuming, washing windows, organizing receipts, making repairs and readying inventory for sale was taking up a lot of time. I miscalculated how much work was needed to maintain just the floors. Our shop is ample sized and the majority of the floors are tile. They require special types of cleaning to keep the grout clean and remove scuff marks. I had no idea how to go about this. I don’t have the proper equipment or products to optimize the appearance of the floors, shelves or windows. I would mop the floors and yet they never appeared clean. The foot traffic had them looking scuffed up and dingy. I tried renting a commercial floor cleaner but the job took hours and made little improvement. It finally dawned on me that I should hire a cleaning service. They come in on a weekly basis. The shop looks so much better now.