Mad Maine Vintage Shop

This little blog will chronicle my ventures into selling vintage items in a local antique market.
My booth is called Mad Maine Vintage Shop - it features items inspired by a certain popular TV show,
and I am located in lovely Maine. Viva Vintage!



Tuesday, January 8, 2013

To paint or not to paint?

I went by my booth today for some major clean-up and to get rid of the last Christmas leftovers.  I spent about an hour tinkering around, putting in new stuff and rearranging the old.  And as much as I love puttering about in my little space (no kids, no work, no phones, no nothing - pure bliss), I am getting increasingly annoyed with the horrible walls in my booth.  The brown paneling is getting on my nerves and the white back wall is grungy and full of old nail holes.  I checked with the owner today, and she said I could paint anything whatever I wanted and that the next couple of weeks are usually slow.

Dreary background, but my colorful toy section is spreading - and my sales have increased.

So, what to do?  Should I attempt to paint my space even though it is full of stuff?  Should I do it in sections?  Or pack up everything, do a fab paint job, let it dry, and then stage it all from scratch?  Have you ever done a drastic paint job AFTER you moved into your booth?  Any advice?

Finally, what do you all think about a light aqua color? Perhaps with white shelves?  Would love to hear what you have (or have not) done, and if it helped your business.

6 comments:

  1. Ohhhhhh. This is a dilemma. I'm lazy, so I would opt for what you deem as the easiest!

    My booth is all pegboard, so I stapled up burlap as my backdrop before I moved in.

    I love your color scheme idea!

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    1. Burlap! I like it. But would not work in my space :-(

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  2. to me it seems like a good idea to pull everything out, paint, then restage. then you can get a totally fresh look and by pulling everything out you can sometimes come up with something even better because you arent staring at the old arrangement while you try to make changes. i think aqua with white shelves sounds great!

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    1. Thanks for the encouragement, Rae! It would seem like such a good start of the new year to start from scratch...

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  3. hmmm, i would paint the walls but might leave the paneling! it has character. :)

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    1. I might leave it in place between a couple of shelves to preserve some true vintage character. It does look ok against my lighter items, but all my brown stuff disappear against the paneling - and I have a lot of brown stuff ready to put out, lol.

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