A Girl Can Dream, Right?!

So my ultimate dream ..... my pie in the sky impossible dream..... is to have my own vintage clothing/haberdashery/"farm girl" antiques shop. Not an Etsy shop..... an actual, real life, "Brick and Mortar" shop shop.

I have wanted to do this ever since I started working at an antiques shop as a teenager and collecting things.

But, the expense of running such a shop is outrageous. And all the ladies I know who own and run such shops in my little, quaint historic hometown in NC are wealthy older retired ladies with more money than they know what to do with.

There is the lease, electricity, insurance, taxes, getting a business licence, opening a business account, getting together enough inventory, getting display shelves and cases together, etc. etc.

I figure one of these days I'll be one of those older, retired ladies with more money than I know what do do with (If I play my cards right) and then in that happy carefree day I too will be the owner of a quaint dusty antiques shop. With a shop cat, of course. :)

Here is the thing eating at me today, though.... one of the antiques shops in my little, quaint, historic town in NC packed up and left. Leaving their space empty and dark.

 

It's in this row of Victorian store fronts referred to locally as "The Shoppes Of Milton".
It is the green and cream colored one. Behind the "Open" banner.

 

Next door to the ultra cute Milton Antique Mall.



Anyway, there is the perfect room in the front portion of this now empty building for a shop such as the one in my dream..... not too big; not too small. Perfect.
With wide pine board floors polished smooth from over 100 years of customer traffic.

With tall windows created just for display and window shopping passers-by.

With double front doors with the original Victorian doorhandles. Perfect for attaching a cute shop keeper's bell.

With a door leading into the Antique Mall next door.

Yes.

I am dying to find out if they'd let me do it; and for how much..... the owner is an old friend of my Grandma's, and my Mom's; and has watched me grow up from the time I was a wee girl. I used to feed her cats and fish when she went out of town.

So. It may all come to nothing, but this weekend I plan on going up there to the Milton Antique mall. I plan on buying out her stash of vintage hats my mother warned me about. And I plan on reminiscing about my Grandmother and the good old days; and I plan on very casually inquiring about rent on the front room of the building next door.

And here is how it is going to end:

"Why, yes! What a perfectly lovely idea! Your mother told me you were selling lovely old things on the computer, when I saw her at the Post Office the other day. How interesting. Yes, I believe you may rent that room for..... oh, say $100 per month? Yes! Here is a key. You may move your things in starting tomorrow. No, don't pay me now.... wait till next week. You can use all those old display things in the back. I believe I have some old dress forms in my basement; could you use those? And I have piles of old clothes and hats you may try to sell also, if you like. Can you work some of the rent off by keeping my store once in a while? Oh, wonderful! I can't wait. We are so looking forward to having you here! I will call the paper and send them down to do a story on our new shop keeper. Welcome!"

Yup. Crossing my fingers. But not getting my hopes too high.....