Mr. Hammer & Mrs. Paint needed some hardware for various projects they have in flight and planned for the very near future. I was going to spend a 12 hour day shopping, so I took it on myself to look for some used hardware. I was successful, in that I found two 4-packs of drawer pulls and a knocker. As I took pictures and then planned to tell Mrs. Paint what I had purchased, I realized I didn't have the vocabulary to tell her. So I asked the internets.

The internets took me here, to Cliffside Industries. Cliffside tells me that the hardware I purchased falls into the "pulls" and "handles" category of cabinet hardware because they require more than 1 screw for installation.

Once I had that tidbit, I had to get creative. From about 5 different sites, I concluded that I found:

• a set of 4 bail or drop pulls (left)
  
• a set of 4 pulls with backplates (right)
  

I hope you're enjoying learning these things along with me!

Our Mrs. Paint has done it again. Remember when we gave her the medium reel from our small, medium, and large trio of reels? After that happened, we sent the large one to her house.

Sadly, the small reel is still at my house. But not for long...

I am endlessly envious of our dear Mrs. Paint's creativity. We got a stack of used electrical reels because I had seen a cool picture using one in a magazine once upon a time, and in no time, we found ourselves the happy owners of an ottoman to sell. Here's how it went.

Stack of electrical reels at my house:

The same stack of electrical reels at Mrs. Paint's house:

I feel this way about everything at her house v. everything at my house. Our designer is a lady with talent, and I'm proud to know her!

Anyway, shortly after all this magic happened, the amazing ottoman found its way to our space at The Queen of Hearts in Alpharetta...and was promptly purchased (thank you shopper)!!!

I need to send more of my junk over to Mrs. Paint's house, don't I?

The Queen of Hearts offers a half-day training course to all dealer merchants, and although I was interested from day 1, it took 2 months of being a dealer merchant for the course to be offered on a day that I was in town and available. So I went. Yesterday!

I found my way to the Buford location and their training room just as the very charismatic Peggy Jones was getting started, and then spent the next 4 hours in sponge mode. I was delighted to find out that The Painted Hammer has developed a strong Facebook reputation with the Queen's PR staff, and we got several mentions when the course talked about good Facebook practices. We went through a tagging exercise so that we could understand how important our tags are, how important it is to follow their tag guidelines, and what happens when we don't. To the best of my knowledge, we follow the rules, but it was good to learn why the rules are there. I really enjoyed hearing Peggy's ideas on what a good booth is like, how invested the Queen is in our shared success, what our rent and fees go to, and how to promote our wares.

I'm most impressed with how the course was able to cover such a broad range of topics for such a broad range of dealer merchants with such a varied set of skills. I guarantee you all 20 of us left with a list of things to do immediately in our space, things to look into, and things to try once we've been around for a little longer...I know I did!

Here are a few things on my list:

• Our merchandising is good (thanks to the amazing Audrey), but I can't wait to get more furniture pieces in so that we have less on the floor and more at waist height and above.
• I do the website, Facebook & Instagram, but I'm missing out on an important group by not doing a monthly email newsletter.
• I need to get to know the sales people on the floor better because they talk to customers, they see our booth way more than I do, and they are going to have some insights & perspectives that could help us do better.

I'm glad the Queen offers this course, I'm glad I went, and I look forward to

Construction of client M's custom modular shelving walls has officially begun! The design that Shane created with M (see that part of our story here) is steadily taking shape, although a lot more sawing & hammering & hammering & sawing has to take place before paint can even be considered.

As you can see in the low resolution snapshot below, one of the 21' walls is nearing completion. Once it is done, the open side can begin.

As this project progresses, I get more and more excited about the amazingness that will be the end result. I will keep you updated here, I promise.