First of all, did anyone know that when you spend a lot of money in one day, the bank calls to make sure no fraudulent activity is going on...I never knew they did that and let me tell you when the bank calls you and says, "we've noticed some highly unusual activity on your debit card" I almost had a heart attack, thinking of all the money I had in my bank account in that moment and all of it draining as we spoke..."What!?!! what KIND of activity?"...the bank associate preceded to tell me all the places that I had visited the day before and how much was spent...I very excitedly told her...."oooh phew, no that was just me, all me, but thank you so much for calling!!" So in case you ever go on a shopping spree and spend a lot of money in one day, the bank will call you! I'm pretty sure that will most likely never happen to me again:) Well maybe someday for something else, ya never know!
So to continue my story, if anyone is interested. Basically I had money in my account on the 1st of August and went to Marshall's to start my shopping. I came back with 2 chairs. And let me tell you, I hemmed and hawed about those two. I came back home to try some Internet shopping, after having many online anxiety attacks, I shut down my computer and gave up. I'll just wait.
(not sure what i was waiting for, but I waited)
The next part of the story is kinda like in Cinderella, where the fairy godmother appears to help Cindy with her situation. Her fairy godmother was named just that, fairy godmother...mine was named Shelly from Drooz studio, so much of a more fun fairy godmother cause while we shopped we drank latte's and gossiped:)
So my fairy god sister knew I would have a bit of a problem with the shopping part, her specialty and my downfall, plus she was essential to keeping me on the same "theme" and not make it look like an eclectic mess!
Shelly does much better than the design on a dime show and is so creative and whimsical and just plain perfect:) She (Thank's God) called to see where I was in my purchases..."Well, I bought two chairs!" Now thinking back on it, it was Saturday the 4th and I needed to have everything purchased by the 15th of August, because the whirlwind began then and our opening date was September 4th! She (being nervous for me, I think) asked if I wanted to go shopping tomorrow, we could spend the whole day and get a lot done! (Thank's God, again)
(not sure what i was waiting for, but I waited)
The next part of the story is kinda like in Cinderella, where the fairy godmother appears to help Cindy with her situation. Her fairy godmother was named just that, fairy godmother...mine was named Shelly from Drooz studio, so much of a more fun fairy godmother cause while we shopped we drank latte's and gossiped:)
So my fairy god sister knew I would have a bit of a problem with the shopping part, her specialty and my downfall, plus she was essential to keeping me on the same "theme" and not make it look like an eclectic mess!
Shelly does much better than the design on a dime show and is so creative and whimsical and just plain perfect:) She (Thank's God) called to see where I was in my purchases..."Well, I bought two chairs!" Now thinking back on it, it was Saturday the 4th and I needed to have everything purchased by the 15th of August, because the whirlwind began then and our opening date was September 4th! She (being nervous for me, I think) asked if I wanted to go shopping tomorrow, we could spend the whole day and get a lot done! (Thank's God, again)
So we started at Sam's club, on the way grabbing a jolt of iced coffee and talking about inspiration. We had met earlier the week before for breakfast and after she had proposed the most decadent color of all, Chocolate brown, I did find a bowl (our manicure bowl to be exact, yep that was our main inspiration, that bowl!) I was kinda wondering how Sam's club would be of help, but I didn't have any doubts in her shopping ability. On the way in the car, we had been talking about a soar subject, the desk issue, basically I had a 4 foot allowance for a space, we both pictured something brown and she pictured something high, that she could put her bag up on to search for things in there and maybe a small vase of roses to smell before paying the tab. I had been looking at desks online for the whole week and they ranged in price from $1500 to $5000 especially custom made desks. So after walking the aisles for a bit and finding some storage bins that would work well for perm rods and etcetera's , we went to the furniture area and there standing (picture beams of light shining down on it and Que the music) was the most perfect "desk" perfect height, perfect finish - brown marble and chocolate brown finish...but logically I was scratching my head (sometimes I have a hard time looking outside of the box) "But Shelly, it's a bar!" That is how I know she is way more creative then me, in my brain I was thinking it's a bar not a desk, and she was thinking...its anything we want it to be!! Such a huge lesson for me:) So simple! Always remember, anything can be whatever you want it to be! That was our bargain of the century, perfect size, extra storage, a little pull out shelf for the keyboard and excellent price...$500. Now my budget for my desk that I had allotted $1000 for, I could move over that extra cash to another area...Perfect! We had a great start, picked up a table for the reception area, the 4 mirrors at Target, a candy jar (very important) the retail shelves and the giant potted grass for on top of the retail!
The next day we went to the beauty supply store and although Thomas and I were on our own, we poured over pages and pages of options....HA who am I kidding, we only got through a couple of books and then decided on the first option we saw when walking through the door. We did some more moving around of our budgets, I had budgeted $400 for the stations (thinking I could go ultra simple and just use a tall table) but found these awesome towers that held all the tools inside, and the whole idea of hiding cords appealed to both of us. However that was double of what we wanted to spend, so we were going to roll it over in our heads and make the final decision in a couple of days. The chairs we had looked at there, weren't doing much for me, they were grey, not silver like I wanted, so at that point I just could not make any decisions!
I went home and thought about my chairs, I envisioned them and wondered if they made silver chairs (the sales rep told me no they did not make silver, only grey...bah!) So what do you do when you want something?? Well you google it, don'tcha?? And better yet (I'm so lucky, because this seemed to happen all through our shopping and ordering experience!) they were half the price that I had budgeted for them, so suddenly I could throw some of that money over to my station budget! Pure harmony (in a budgeting sense:) We placed that order and things started arriving, the pile in my garage started to get overwhelming, and I questioned if everything I was buying would in fact go together...scary!
The last trip I had to make was to Ikea, I pleaded with anyone to accompany me, but no one could:( So me and my brave boys went alone, we drove on the 13th of August, 4 hours to PA, shopped for 5 hours, (my head was spinning to say the least) and 4 hours home and a very very full car! I had gotten the panels to separate the areas, the manicure table supplies (we made our own) the shelves for under the mirror (they matched perfectly, although purchased from two different places...see, harmony!) and the items for our tiny color area/dispensary, all ikea bathroom furniture! (see I did fully understand the lesson on making things be anything you want them to be:)
I'm sure I missed some things in there, but all in all, it was so NOT painful to do all that shopping and in the end, miraculously it all came together perfectly! Thanks to my buddy Shelly, we couldn't have done it without her, just having her presence and advice helped in so many ways! It was funny, we were so in sync that I would find something online, would email it to her, and she would have been looking at the same thing. My sconces I have above the stations, I found them at Lowe's, she has them in her studio, I sent them to her in an email and she had been looking at them in the studio, thinking of taking a picture of them to send to me as a suggestion....
Harmony, Bijou was built on harmony:) It must be why the flow is so wonderful in there! I do always notice when people are sitting, processing their color, or getting a pedicure, clients all talk together, people meet, find common ground and I have even seen clients exchange numbers, laugh hysterically or even shed a tear. It's so relaxing, the flow must be due to how it was created, harmoniously constructed through friendship and love. Okay, I'm totally being corny and normally I would delete this, but it's 5am and I'm okay with being corny right now:) Although I have probably missed some very important shopping situations, after rewriting this, I'm so thankful for the people in my life and corny I will be, I'm okay with that!
The next day we went to the beauty supply store and although Thomas and I were on our own, we poured over pages and pages of options....HA who am I kidding, we only got through a couple of books and then decided on the first option we saw when walking through the door. We did some more moving around of our budgets, I had budgeted $400 for the stations (thinking I could go ultra simple and just use a tall table) but found these awesome towers that held all the tools inside, and the whole idea of hiding cords appealed to both of us. However that was double of what we wanted to spend, so we were going to roll it over in our heads and make the final decision in a couple of days. The chairs we had looked at there, weren't doing much for me, they were grey, not silver like I wanted, so at that point I just could not make any decisions!
I went home and thought about my chairs, I envisioned them and wondered if they made silver chairs (the sales rep told me no they did not make silver, only grey...bah!) So what do you do when you want something?? Well you google it, don'tcha?? And better yet (I'm so lucky, because this seemed to happen all through our shopping and ordering experience!) they were half the price that I had budgeted for them, so suddenly I could throw some of that money over to my station budget! Pure harmony (in a budgeting sense:) We placed that order and things started arriving, the pile in my garage started to get overwhelming, and I questioned if everything I was buying would in fact go together...scary!
The last trip I had to make was to Ikea, I pleaded with anyone to accompany me, but no one could:( So me and my brave boys went alone, we drove on the 13th of August, 4 hours to PA, shopped for 5 hours, (my head was spinning to say the least) and 4 hours home and a very very full car! I had gotten the panels to separate the areas, the manicure table supplies (we made our own) the shelves for under the mirror (they matched perfectly, although purchased from two different places...see, harmony!) and the items for our tiny color area/dispensary, all ikea bathroom furniture! (see I did fully understand the lesson on making things be anything you want them to be:)
I'm sure I missed some things in there, but all in all, it was so NOT painful to do all that shopping and in the end, miraculously it all came together perfectly! Thanks to my buddy Shelly, we couldn't have done it without her, just having her presence and advice helped in so many ways! It was funny, we were so in sync that I would find something online, would email it to her, and she would have been looking at the same thing. My sconces I have above the stations, I found them at Lowe's, she has them in her studio, I sent them to her in an email and she had been looking at them in the studio, thinking of taking a picture of them to send to me as a suggestion....
Harmony, Bijou was built on harmony:) It must be why the flow is so wonderful in there! I do always notice when people are sitting, processing their color, or getting a pedicure, clients all talk together, people meet, find common ground and I have even seen clients exchange numbers, laugh hysterically or even shed a tear. It's so relaxing, the flow must be due to how it was created, harmoniously constructed through friendship and love. Okay, I'm totally being corny and normally I would delete this, but it's 5am and I'm okay with being corny right now:) Although I have probably missed some very important shopping situations, after rewriting this, I'm so thankful for the people in my life and corny I will be, I'm okay with that!
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