6 minute read
Four Washington County women with a passion for the decor business
Kelly Vance, owner of A Place for All Seasons in Hagerstown, is a self-confessed one-woman show.
A Place for All Seasons has four rooms of seasonal home décor items.
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Minding Their Own Business
Written by PAULETTE LEE
As the saying goes, “Home is where the heart is”, and for four Washington County women that passion is also their business. They’re doing what they love, and love doing it.
A Place For All Seasons
Kelly Vance, owner of A Place for All Seasons on Potomac Ave in Hagerstown’s North End, originally had her home décor business in Funkstown from 1995 to 2000. She took a break to raise her two daughters, and then re-opened in the new location after her husband found an older building for sale and asked her, “Do you want to go back into business?”
Vance is always re-arranging her store – which has four rooms of seasonal home décor items, plus some jewelry, outerwear and accessories. She’s meticulous about making her displays attractive and will use unusual materials to add to them, such as pine cones she’ll pick up on walks, or recycling packing materials, using the “peanuts” to replicate snow, or crumpling brown paper to hold an arrangement upright instead of using glue or floral foam. She particularly likes to offer customers ideas for arrangements; for example, “Don’t cut the stems of artificial flowers. Slice open the wrapping tape that holds the ‘picks’ together and then you can bend and re-arrange them.”
Vance purchases her wares from shows, never online. “I have to see it, touch it, feel it. I buy what I love. I try to have a mix to accommodate everybody. I don’t want to be so high-end that I can’t accommodate your budget. I’m not an up-seller. If you have a limit, I’ll stay within it.”
Vance’s business is a one-woman show and that’s just the way she wants it.
“I love decorating, arranging, buying for the store – it’s all just second nature for me. I talk to wonderful customers and have made great friends. This isn’t work for me, it’s fun!”
Clover & Ivy
MaryBeth Chang is also a solo business owner, but she’s not a one-woman show, as her gift shop Clover & Ivy on Maugans Avenue in Hagerstown on the edge of Maugansville, features close to 60 vendors who rent space from her. There’s something for everyone – including separate rooms just for Polish pottery and children’s items.
Chang, a crafter and designer of hair products and children’s clothing, started her business in 2021 because, she says, “I got tired of doing craft shows, of being out in the field in the rain”, so she brought along five other crafter friends into her retail venture, which continues to grow as it moves into its second year. “I make sure I have new items,” she says, “mostly crafters, with a few re-sellers, because I like to find originals.” Chang also has a strong commitment to women business owners, and points out that all the businesses in the small plaza in which her store is located are women-owned. Her location across from a school and park also helps bring in customers – parents who buy for themselves, for their children, and for others.
With so many vendors’ items on display, Chang has to be diligent about security. One of her security measures is her height. “I’m very tall; none of my displays go over my line of sight, plus, I’m always out on the floor and in the rooms, greeting and talking to people.”
Chang goes out of her way to help her customers and vendors. She’ll research items customers may want
Clover & Ivy’s MaryBeth Chang offers creations from nearly 60 vendors with a wide variety of styles and products. There’s something for everyone at Clover & Ivy in Hagerstown, including separate rooms just for Polish pottery and children’s items.
Refined’s inventory is a curation of what’s trending and what customers want in home decor.
but she doesn’t carry; if needed, she’ll make simple repairs to jewelry she has sold; and she’ll help crafters get into craft shows “if they want to stand out in the field in the rain”, she laughs. “I love doing this. I just really like that people come in and say there’s nothing like it; it makes me feel good.”
Refined
What makes Denise Nolan and Bobbi Morris feel good is their friendship. The co-owners of Refined (newly branded from Refined & Repurposed) on Pennsylvania Avenue have been in business together since 2007 when they met at their sons’ Sharpsburg Little League games and started a home décor business out of Nolan’s house. Fifteen years later they’re in a 20,000 square foot facility, juggle both a home furnishings retail and kitchen cabinetry refinishing business – and remain the closest of friends as well as business partners.
“We complement each other,” Morris says. “She’s (referring to Nolan) the idea person, the ‘diver’ who will just go into something and take the risk.” Nolan says of Morris, “She’s the personality, the creative one, the sister I never had.”
In the past decade and a half, Nolan and Morris have gone through a number of growing pains, not the least of which was the recent business name change. They’ve seen highs – such as during the COVID pandemic, when people were spending more time and money on their homes – and they’ve seen lows, too, when people are more concerned with going out and doing things, rather than buying for their
that genre.” – Bobbi Morris, Co-Owner of Refined
Today, much of the merchandise at Refined is geared toward the popular “farmhouse” trend.
homes. The biggest challenges, they say, are keeping up with the trends, knowing what customers want, and they admit to an identity crisis.
“We’ve been ‘Southern modern chic’,” Morris says. “We went from ‘primitive’ to ‘vintage’ to ‘shabby chic’ and now it’s ‘farmhouse,’ but there are a million trends just within that genre.”
There’s also the issue of language. “We need to know,” Nolan adds, “what a customer means when she says she wants a piece of furniture ‘glazed’, or ‘distressed,’ or even ‘white’, as there are at least 80 shades of ‘white’.”
In addition to working together, Morris and Nolan are often out on the road together, “picking” (looking for products) – going to auctions or visiting other pickers who’ve bought from estate or storage bin sales. It’s all about mixing styles, they say: “You don’t have to pick a lane; you can be all of it. We buy what we love.”
At the end of the day, though, it’s about the two of them. At the end of the day, they’re still talking to each other on the phone, or texting each other. They laugh that they spend more time with each other than with their husbands and children. And if they had to choose between the business and their friendship, they both agree: the friendship would win, hands down.
Denise Nolan and Bobbi Morris, owners of Refined in Hagerstown, have been in business together since 2007.
