It has been a crazy last 10 months… And I know a lot of you may have heard our story already but we still wanted to document and share all of the before photos and the process of moving to town. I apologize in advance if it get’s a bit lengthy, but it has been quite the year!
When we first started Timeless Creations it had always been a goal of ours to have a cute little home decor boutique in our hometown of Houston, MN. But we began in a little building out behind the family farmhouse about 2 miles outside of town. It was a quaint and small little shop, perfect for just starting out. But we quickly outgrew our space there after only a couple years. I’m not even exactly sure how it happened but when we heard the previous owner of the fitness center in town was looking to sell her building we decided to jump all-in on our dream of owning a larger space in town.
Here is the first photo I took of the building as we were deciding to purchase:
At first we thought this endeavor may be crazy as Kristen was 7 months pregnant with twin boys at the time and was soon to be taking time off to spend with them. However, the same day we heard the building would be for sale, Kristen (who had been searching for childcare for months) heard about a part time nanny opportunity that would be perfect for her situation. We took that as God laying out our path for us. After a struggle to find childcare, suddenly all the pieces were falling into place just perfectly.
Even though we questioned ourselves numerous times, everything seemed perfect and we ended up closing on the building in June of 2021 with the newborn twins in tow at signing just a month after they were born!
It was a slow process to remodel the building however. It took quite a while to get all the construction bids and figure out what we were doing. We wanted to do as much of it ourselves as possible, but since part of the building was unfinished space, we knew going into it, it was going to be a big job. We planned it out well to remodel the unfinished part first, which was going to be the new space for the gym, and then once the gym was moved we could remodel the large area in the front of the building that would house our new boutique.
This is what the previous gym space looked like that would be turned into our boutique.
And here is what the unfinished space looked like:
The unfinished part definitely needed some work since there was no insulation or finished walls! And Ta-DA! We were able to add a window, change out garage doors, got some sheetrock up and painted it all a bright white! Rubber gym flooring was purchased and installed by my dad, husband and brother-in-law as it was very heavy to move! Then at the end of September we were able to move all of the equipment from the old area to the new in just 2 days! We worked very hard to have the most minimal of downtime for the gym members. This is the biggest reason for remodeling the new gym space first instead of the whole building at once. We were able to keep the gym up and running while Stage 1 of construction was taking place! We also kept Timeless Creations open and running at the old location as well, so we had zero downtime for both businesses.
Stage 2 of construction for our boutique side of the building did take a little bit longer than we originally had hoped. September we were able to get the outside painted while the weather was still nice. Here is what it looked like after power washing it. It looked terrible for a couple days!
We decided to paint it a lovely shade of white, but wanted to keep the character of the original trim work and painted that a lighter shade of grey. Then we had some ideas to warm it up with wood a bit later! (photos of that to come below)
October began harvest season for our contractor (my uncle!) and my dad who were both working on the building. Fall into Christmas season is also THE busiest season for Vicki and I in the retail store. We had tons to do and just barely worked on the building to begin with. My dad and I removed the drop tile ceiling. We blew through one wall into some of the previously unfinished area and created some arches to give us some more space.
After finding some old car-siding along one wall of the room, I decided I was going to remove ALL of the sheetrock on that wall in order to use that old car-siding for character. We were so ecstatic when we found that! Our building used to be an old lumber yard back in the early days of Houston and we thought it was absolutely fitting to use that character for some fun! But holy smokes, removing sheetrock from that car-siding was no joke. My uncle showed me how to use the crow bar for easier leverage, but boy that crow bar got heavy after a while! Still – we are very happy with the end result of the white painted car-siding there.
We were also able to get it the rest of it sheet-rocked before Christmas. I really don’t know how Vicki and I found the time to get ALL of the walls painted, but we did it! We couldn’t justify spending money to hire the painting out when we paint for a living… We also got lucky and had an abnormally warm 60 degree day in December and I quickly painted the front door black!
The main finishing part began in January when flooring got put down. A few posts got wrapped in wood, Vicki and I stained and finished ALL of the trim work and two sets of double doors. Lighting got finished up as well as the HVAC. Then it was display work time. We wanted to have a fabulous Fusion Mineral Paint display and decided on adding a large storage space at the bottom with shelves for display on top. We took unfinished upper cabinets from Menards to create a skinny built in along one wall. Pine countertop was added over the top from two edge glued pine slabs and a 1×2 on the end. Then brackets and more stained pine 5/4 boards were added above.
We also took an existing window unit that was by the large 12 foot front window and added a wood top to it out of the same edge glued pine slabs and 1×2’s. We felt it was perfect for placing items on top for window displays! A new coat of paint on the bottom and we had a fabulous window area!
Our checkout counter, however, went through many ideas… We had found the old store counter piece on the right at a flea market in August and knew we wanted to incorporate that. But we still needed more space. We didn’t have much for storage, and we like to keep extra product, papers, brochures, our shopping bags, the garbage, and so much more close by so we decided we needed more than that one 6 foot counter. So we grabbed some more unfinished cabinets from Menards, attached them together, added an oak countertop to it and debated and debated on what to do to the unfinished back parts of the cabinets…We threw out so many ideas and finally came up with a way to imitate the look of the old store counter! My dad and I put that together in just an hour and a half! I was so excited. It doesn’t match perfectly, but comes very close! (I’ll share a separate post of how we put that together very soon).
Then the moving began! Luckily we had a fairly nice weekend and lots of help to move the store. My husband and brother helped with all the large pieces, while grandma Vicki was on babysitting duty. YUP! I had my twin boys and daughter there that weekend helping to move! It actually went really well, and we ended up finishing all the large/hard items in one day! We planned it well, had a crockpot lunch for all of our help and got it done quickly. While it was a lot of work, we had a lot of fun doing it and we will never forget that time together!
And now we have a beautiful new space in the heart of downtown Houston, MN. It gave us much needed space not only for display our boutique but also in our workshop area at the farm. We now have much more room in our old display space to work! We used to have to shuffle projects and could only have about 2 at time out. Now we have the room to have about 3 pieces EACH plus table space for small items!
If you haven’t been to our Boutique yet, you should definitely stop by sometime. We are open every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and would absolutely love to see you. Whether you like new items, handmade, antique, need furniture, home decor or a gift we have a little something for everyone. Our hand-poured soy candles and diffusers continue to be popular, and the three new lines of apothecary products (soaps, lotions and more) are rapidly growing to be a fan favorite.
Special Thank You’s go out to all those who helped us in this journey. First and foremost to our families for being so supportive, understanding and helpful! We couldn’t have done it without you. Roxie and Jim Grondin, Eitzen State Bank, Houston County Economic Development Authority, Brian Olson Construction, LLC, Bluff Country Drywall, TNT Painting, La Crosse Sign Co. Bagniefski Heating and Air Conditioning, Graf Electric.
And a special Thank You to all of our CLIENTS (from the gym members to the customers) who come out to support us! We wouldn’t be here, doing what we love, without YOU!
If you are ever in the area, our Boutique is open Thursdays and Fridays from 10-5 and Saturdays 10-3. We would love to see you!
Cheryl says
looks beautiful can’t wait to check it out
Kristen & Vicki says
Thank you so much Cheryl! We hope to see you soon!