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Ventura County Star Newspaper October 6, 2006 Cottage industry Newbury Park woman adds right touch to refurbished items |
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| A tight budget and a wealth of imagination led one Newbury Park woman to glue, paint and varnish her hobby into a successful home-based Internet business called The Old Painted Cottage. Jennifer Grey, a former nanny, launched her home decor business in February of this year. To date she has had almost 1.6 million hits on her site, http://www.theoldpaintedcottage.com. In September, she averaged more than 4,500 hits per day.
Essentially, Grey sells vintage or antique furniture and decor that she restores in her home.
"I just started going to flea markets … and garage sales and finding old furniture," Grey said, "finding old things that people were throwing away, and bringing it home and fixing it up."
Grey's journey to entrepreneurship began about nine years ago, when she was newly married. To make ends meet, she worked as a nanny while fixing up her home with secondhand items she unearthed at flea markets and garage sales. Grey, now 34, realized she had a knack for restoration when friends who also lived in her condominium complex began complimenting her on her home decorating.
"People who were neighbors who lived in the exact type of condo we did came in and (said) they felt like they were in a whole different house," Grey said.
About seven years ago, it occurred to Grey that she might be able to sell some of her creations over the Internet. She decided to take a leap of faith, quit her nanny job and began selling vintage baby clothing on eBay.
"EBay at that time was very, very small," Grey said. "They had very few categories."
People snapped up the vintage baby items, which encouraged Grey to expand her inventory to include the home accent items she was buying and restoring. Again, success.
"I realized that I had the ability to market my items," she said. "From there it just built and built."
Grey threw herself into her new business, training herself by reading magazines and books and combing garage and estate sales for one-of-a kind vintage and antique items she thought she could restore and sell.
"People want things that are … not Ikea, not Target," Grey said. "People want things that really have history."
Grey describes the items she creates as a cross between French Country, American Cottage and her own interpretation of Shabby Chic, a brand of resurrected flea market finds created in 1989 by Santa Monica designer Rachel Ashwell.
"It's French décor, it's Old World, it's a lot of things," Grey said. "It's just a very relaxing atmosphere. And these styles, you can fold them together beautifully."
The process:
When hunting for a candidate for restoration, Grey tries to look beyond the dingy brown paint or ripped cushions.
"I look at the silhouette of the piece," Grey said, "because when you paint something, it really brings out the lines in a piece. It brings out so much character."
Like Ashwell, Grey tends to paint or recover her garage sale finds with soft, pale colors, such as whites, baby pinks, robin's egg blues, sage greens and aquas.
"I would love to paint the outside of our house pink, but my husband says I can't," Grey joked.
Former Thousand Oaks resident Suzi Ufland, who now lives in Los Angeles, has been buying items from Grey's Web site for about five years. She said she believes Grey's style echoes Shabby Chic with a modern twist.
"Jennifer has taken it to a new level, a 21st-century level," Ufland said. "It's lots more ‘Chic' with just the right amount of ‘Shabby.'"
Useful restraint:
Ufland said she believes Grey's instincts with her craft are impeccable, especially considering the fact that she has had no formal training in antique restoration.
"The thing I admire about her is her ability to restrain herself. She takes things and perks them up … just to the point where it doesn't look cutesy," Ufland said. "She knows where to stop where it doesn't look contrived."
Grey's latest addition to her Web site is a feature called "Cottage of the Month," in which she invites local viewers of her site to submit photos of their homes and gardens.
When Grey finds one with romantic, cottage-style appeal, she travels to the home, takes photos, writes up a feature on the person and his or her decorating style, then puts the article and photos up on her site for a month.
This newest addition is so popular, Grey said, that there is a waiting list of homeowners who want to be featured; the next "Cottage of the Month" opening is not until March of 2007. | ||
Written by Kim Lamb Gregory kgregory@VenturaCountyStar.com
Photographs of the article:
