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a couple of weeks early

Do you remember, back at the beginning of the month, when I told you that I had big news to announce on October 1st?

MSLogo copy

October 1, 2016

Well, I’m announcing it to you, today, a couple of weeks earlier than expected!

I have a new business! It was built out of my love of entertaining, my love of stuff and my wish to share. You see, I am a collector, an “Organized Hoarder”, some in my family would say.

13th table

When I entertain, the first thing I do is come up with a theme. I build the entire dinner, event, party, or whatever around that theme. The theme is what sparks my imagination and helps me create. Once I have the theme, I’m off and running. The theme is where my inspiration comes from for the decor, the food, the cocktails, the music playlists, and sometimes even the guest list.

peggy anne linda

So what does all of this lead to? It takes me to the fact that I have A LOT of stuff. A bunch of great collections.

One evening last fall, while enjoying cocktails with my BFFs, Peggy and Anne, we discussed the obvious need for me to do more with all The Stuff!

We came up with the idea of renting it out. That sounded like a fine plan, except all the stuff was scattered around the entire house. Some in the garage, more in the kitchen, upstairs in the craft room, even under my bed! I’d never be organized enough to pull out what I needed, when I needed it, to rent out in any sort of business-like manner!

the-miscellany-shed

What I needed was a shed! A new and organized shed to hold all my stuff in one easy and accessible space.

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Next, I needed a name. I desperately wanted to call it The Shit Shed. Remember, we were imbibing on this particular evening! And, I’m sorry, but shit is one of my favorite words. There are much worse cuss words. I find it the least offensive and besides it comes in handy for almost every occasion.

You stub your toe – “SHIT!”

Someone cuts you off in traffic – “Oh shit!”

You’re in a major hurry and the person in front of you in the 10 or less line has 27 items (you know you’re counting each little thing as they’re loading it on that belt!) and all the while you’re thinking – “What a shit she/he is!”

You have a lot of stuff – “I have way too much shit!”

Thankfully, cooler heads and more reasonable voices prevailed. Peggy and Anne would not allow me to call it The Shit Shed.

So we went online and started looking for words that might work. What I had was a miscellaneous assortment of nice, not the least bit shitty, items that people might like to rent. None of us were happy with the word “miscellaneous” so we looked up synonyms and we all loved the word “miscellany”.

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I searched to see if MiscellanyShed.com was already taken. It was not!

The name works on so many levels. I love that the initials, MS, are my newly married daughter’s initials. I also embrace the feminist ideal of the word Ms. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, maybe you weren’t around in the 1970s, so check out THIS article. Lastly, “miscellany” is not overused but easily understood.

Immediately, I bought MiscellanyShed.com!

It has taken over a year for many reasons, the first being that I was in the midst of planning my daughter’s wedding at the time. In fact, the wedding itself was part of the inspiration for MiscellanyShed.com too. I was acquiring even more stuff during those months. More items that would make the shed even more wonderful.

shed-inside

Then there was the actual shed. I had the shed, but it needed to be emptied, the roof repaired, and cleaned. New sturdy shelves needed to be bought and put up and I had to have electricity put into it. The biggest job of all was rounding up all the stuff and organizing it into collections. Or at least I thought that was the biggest job at the time. It wasn’t even close to the most difficult and time-consuming task at hand!

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Once I finished loading the shed, only then did I realize that I needed to pull out each collection, one at a time, photograph it and then put it ALL back together again! That has been a massive undertaking. In fact, it is still a work in progress.

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As of today, I have nine of the more than dozen collections photographed and up on the site. Still to come are the Mercury Glass Collection, the Picnic Collection, the Basket Collection, the Photo Booth Prop Collection, the Faux Succulents Collection, the Shop The Yard/Shop the House Collection, and a couple more yet TBD.

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Not only are you able to rent full collections, but you can also rent just an item or two. Plus I will be offering my Styling Services. If you need help with the creative side of entertaining, from the planning to the design to the setup, I’m here for you.

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So please, check out MiscellanyShed.com and let me know what you think. It isn’t quite ready to “go public” yet. The website is up and you, my loyal followers are the first to see it and are able to rent items – starting today. My ability to take credit cards won’t be available until the original start date of October 1st. So if you’re interested in reserving or renting items before then, I can take a check. Or if you’re interested in one of the collections I mentioned above that aren’t yet on the site, I can show and tell you more about those too.

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Mostly, I want to share it with you and get your opinions and feedback. Please send me an email at [email protected] or leave a comment here and share your thoughts and any suggestions you may have.

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Thank you for reading LesPetitesGourmettes.com all these years and I hope you’ll enjoy MiscellanyShed.com just as much.

P.S. On the Miscellany Shed home page, you’ll find the link to our new Facebook page. If you’re on FB, I’d be doubly grateful if you would not only “like” us but also invite your friends to “like” us too! xoxo

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11 comments

1 Amy { 09.14.16 at 6:48 AM }

Yay! So excited that this dream has come true. You go girl!

2 Sheila { 09.14.16 at 7:17 AM }

So excited to see you undertake this new adventure!!! Xo

3 Kim { 09.14.16 at 7:29 AM }

This is such fun. I have a winter wedding shower coming up.

4 Tram Mai { 09.14.16 at 7:43 AM }

HOLY S#*T I LOVE THIS IDEA!!!!! Congratulations Linda!!! You make being an “organized hoarder” not such a bad thing afterall!!! Such a great idea and exciting new venture!! THIS is why we’ve all called you THE hostess with the MOSTESS!!!! PEOPLE- if you’re planning an event, you need to hook up with Linda!!! She can dress an event up like NO ONE ELSE!!!! 🙂

5 raechel { 09.14.16 at 7:43 AM }

congrats linda this is so exciting!

6 Marissa { 09.14.16 at 8:39 AM }

So excited it is finally live! I wish people could see all the work that went into photographing and putting together all the collections. And of course I love that it is my initials 🙂

7 Victoria Dickerson { 09.14.16 at 8:58 AM }

This is SOOOO FABULOUS! I love that you are doing this! After preparing for my son’s wedding last summer and just not finding exactly what they wanted, a friend and I spent hours making miles of beautiful lace bunting, collecting perfect little flower containers and picnic baskets, on and on. This is EXACTLY the kind of source I searched for. LOVE IT!

8 Shelley Jiang { 09.14.16 at 9:30 AM }

Congrats! Best wishes for your new adventure!

9 Anne { 09.14.16 at 10:14 AM }

Can’t believe it was a year ago?!! Great job on all the photos! So happy for you Linda, I know it will be another successful adventure in your life. Good times! xoxo

10 Bern Evans { 09.14.16 at 1:44 PM }

Congratulations!!!! I know you will absolutely ROCK this!!! And I will share with everyone who might be looking for just the right thing!!! Hold onto your hats and glasses, Linda is on FIRE again!!!!

11 Ginger Tunheim { 09.14.16 at 3:01 PM }

You are always shopping and decorating now you are putting it all together! Congratulations Linda!! A dream come true!! Enjoy!!?

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