{3:17} Vintage Furniture & Home Decor: Color Palettes... The method to the madness

Starting in March we are introducing a new feature to "The Market" each month... color palettes. Color palettes have been bouncing around in the back of my head for some time now. The idea is simple... choose a different color palette each month consisting of 4-6 paint colors paired with specific wood tones and metal tones. Actually pulling it all together... now that's a little more difficult.

Let me break it down...

-We have 28 vendors bringing stuff in every month...17 of which bring in furniture and décor pieces. That's 17 people, with 17 different styles, with 17 different "go to" colors/ looks that everyone likes to use.
-In addition to that, we are set up in an 1850's 2 story house that has 10 rooms that all have walls in them that have to coordinate with the color palette.
-Then we have seasonal considerations to take into account. I mean, let's be honest...you can't have coral in your color palette during the middle of winter...that's just weird. There is a time and a place for every color, and we have to find it.
-Of course there's you...the customer. I have to choose colors that "I think" you all would like and that I think would sell.
-And last but not least...the feel of the shop. It's no secret that I like to keep a neutral palette. It's our own personal style so of course I am naturally drawn to that, but I also think it just stages better. Our shop has always been the neutral shop and I'm OK with that. In fact...I like it! So now, a shop that has always prided itself on staying more neutral is now introducing color and having to do so in a way that still maintains the overall feel we want, and have always tried to achieve as a shop.

So basically... If you're going to introduce color palettes... don't ~~fuck~~ screw it up. No pressure right?

Now the big question... why?

About a year ago I first approached our vendors with this idea (we'll get to that in a bit). I was in the shop staging the main room one night. As vendors were bringing in new inventory that week I was already setting aside pieces in my mind that I was going to use in the main room. The time came and I was setting up. I started staging the window wall in the main room and it just wasn't coming together. I had 6 different pieces of "white" furniture from 5 different vendors that didn't look good together. The problem was that those 5 different vendors use 5 different brands of paint with 5 different "whites". Separately, they were all phenomenal pieces... staged together it was a ~~cluster fuck~~ hot mess. The different "whites" didn't work together at all. They were just far enough off from each other that it just looked like a mistake...like we decided to throw in the towel on that wall and say "screw it...good enough." Some people might have just left it and been fine with it. Some people may have moved some stuff around, re-staged it, and never thought twice about it again. But for me...it got me thinking. If I was having that many problems staging 1 wall with a few different pieces...what about our customers? What happens when they buy a few pieces from the shop only to get them home and find out that they just don't work together? That's not ok...not to me.

The big presentation...

About a month after the "great staging debacle of 2015" I called a meeting with all our main furniture vendors. I was set...I had some color palettes picked out, color chips cut and organized, poster boards made, etc... I had this whole presentation worked out (Side note: I'm kind of a nerd). I cooked up some food, got them hopped up on some wine, and...here we go...time to present the idea.

Lets just say...it didn't go over well.

I was met with blank stares which meant they were either paralyzed with a WTF type of confusion -or- they were daydreaming of ways to kill me in my sleep. To be honest...I didn't blame them. I wasn't ready yet. It needed to be more thought out, more deliberate, more purposeful. It needed to be the right time and it wasn't. We weren't ready yet.

Why now?

Fast forward a year later. We're in a pretty comfortable place as a shop. Business is good. We've had pretty consistent growth over the past couple years. We've got a pretty solid customer base that continues to grow. So why change? Why fix it if it ain't broken? Well... if you wait for it to break...it's usually too late. Comfortable is a scary place to be. If you get too comfortable, you get complacent. If you become complacent, you lose your edge. You should always push to do more...push to be better. One of the struggles has always been how to appeal to new customers as well as stay relevant to our return customers... our "regulars". Once we get them in the door...how do we keep them coming back when there are seemingly endless options for other vintage shops around town? Well...sometimes you've got to shake it up a bit.

So now I've had year to think about, plan it, fine tune it, revise it, throw it out, plan it again, and fine tune it some more. We've got a group of vendors that I know can pull it off. And... I started to see us getting a little too comfortable...a little too complacent. Making the switch to "occasional" was kind of the little push that got the ball rolling on this again. One of the things, the "rules", in the shop now that we are occasional is no furniture pieces can be in the shop more than 2 months. Even then...not every piece that makes it through the first month without selling is guaranteed a spot at the table for a second month... we need to keep it looking fresh every month. That was one of the hang ups in implementing the color palette before. If we are constantly switching color palettes then we would constantly be repainting pieces that didn't sell. But now, with the new format, if it doesn't sell...it needs to get pulled out or re-painted regardless. So...if we want to implement the color palette idea...now is the time.

So...how does it work?

Here's the deal. We've got 4-6 paint colors we are working off of with each new color palette...

Side note: Sherwin Williams has an amazing online tool that enables you to upload any photo into the program and it will generate a color palette for you in the closest possible crossover Sherwin Williams colors.

The SW Highly Reflective White and SW Cityscape will be consistent through all the color palettes each month.

That will make things a little easier for everyone. That means that any furniture painted in those colors has a chance to make it through to next months try-outs. And...it makes it a little easier on us since we are repainting the shop walls to coordinate with the color palette too! Majority of the shop will be painted in the 2 main colors. Then...we will have a feature wall in each room that will change each month to help pull together the color palette in that room. Our 2 feature wall colors this month will be SW Angora and SW Gray Matters.

Not all rooms will be painted the same combo which will be kind of cool. You're going to get a different look in each room. In some rooms you might have darker furniture up against the lighter white or blush wall.