12 Birthday Open House!

Our 12th Birthday Open House was amazing!  First of all, Thank you!!!  Thank you to our wonderful customers ~ without you we wouldn't exist!  Thank you to our fabulous dealers who constantly amaze me!  Thank you to our employees who are awesome! Thank you to all our friends who came and made me feel the love!  Thank you to my sisters who are always so supportive!  And especially, thank you to my husband, Don, who is my rock and my everything!

We had alot of help from our neighbors to make this a wonderful event!  A HUGE thank you to Rockwell's Creative Cakes who made our fabulous Birthday Cake!  It was gorgeous and of course delicious!!!!  If any of you need a cake for a special event, go to them and tell them Down Home sent you!!!  We've used Rockwell's for some of our family's special occasions ~ Our daughter, Ayla's, wedding cake; my husband, Don's retirement cake; and a "milestone" birthday cake for me (I'm not telling what year!!!)  and we've never been dissapointed!!!  Thank you to our neighborhood Starbucks who supplied us with their wonderful coffee! Tess and I go there almost daily for our caffeine fix!!! And our new neighbor, Avila El Ranchito Mexican Restraunt supplied us with some gift certificates. Thank you so much!!!  We have great restruants in old towne, and Avila's El Ranchito is no exception - I've eaten there twice now!!! We added one of our own gift certificates and raffled them off to our loyal customers who waited patiently in line, some for an hour and a half! The lucky winners were Marva, Peggy & Betty!

Our First Customers in Line-Sharon & Lucy! THANK YOU!

Our Beautiful Birthday Cake from Rockwell's Creative Cakes!

Our fabulous customers kept lining up! THANK YOU!!!

Down Home is my "home away from home",  but it houses the antique businesses of 28 other dealers as well.  They are hard working and constantly searching for wonderful treasures to bring into the store!   They will all tell you I like to come up with rules about what's acceptable, and I get a bit razzed for it, but it works because the store looks amazing!  I am so proud of my dealers and the effort they all put into finding wonderful antiques for our Birthday Open House!  When I walked through the store the night before our open house, it was quiet and peaceful and I got a chance to just look at each space and be thankful of each dealer who carefully placed each item.  It makes me think about all the time it takes to hunt out each item, clean it, fix it, tag it, and display it.  I'm so thankful for the passion each of them have for their business!!!  You can tell by looking at each space, how much they love this crazy antique business! I don't think the store has ever looked better!

Our Birthday Open House kicks off our summer season, and it definitely looks like summer in Down Home!  So many items that bring up thoughts of the beach, the seashore, the ocean, boating, camping, summer vacations, and of course, the Fourth of July! There are collections of boats, thermoses, vintage ice chests, suitcases, patriotic pieces, flags, etc.  There are wonderful pieces of early american furniture ~ pie safes, dry sinks, benches, farm tables, painted cupboards, trunks.  There are some amazing folk art pieces - carved wood pieces, tramp art, pond boats, whirligigs, quilts, an amazing shoe maker's trade sign, and more!  There are lots of signs - ice cream signs, barber signs, farm signs, boating signs, just about any topic you can think of! Seriously, you all just have to come in and see the collection of quality antiques in Down Home right now!!! Gotta run, gotta get started on Year 13!!! Hope to see y'all soon!

P.S. We have lots of pictures of our Birthday Open House and many of the antiques, so check out our website at downhomeantiques.com