Celebrating 15 Years!
It all started 15 years ago sitting in the backyard of my pastor‘s wife’s house. We had a sale with our thrifted handmade and vintage items. The first sale we called ourselves, ShedWares. Vicki had bought a cute little shed, put it in her backyard and we filled it with housewares.
After a few sales of sitting outside braving the Midwest elements of either rain, wind, or snow, we decided to drive around downtown Hudson to look for a building. We found one that said for lease so we called on it. The Republican Party used it for a few months and wanted to sublease it after the election in 2008. It was perfect! We didn’t have to sign a year lease and we can just try it out.
Since we were no longer in a shed we changed the name to ReStore and ReStyle. We both liked the “Re” words, it felt like it told people that our stuff might not be perfect but it came from our Store, and could give your home Style.
Although we didn’t restore furniture we often had spray cans of paint and we painted old furniture to give it a new look. The next few months we had a sale once a month where we would open up and re-decorate our tiny 400 square-foot building on Main Street in Hudson. After our sublease ran out we decided to sign a one-year lease and continue our crazy adventure.
While it was fun, Vicki had three kids in school and Neil and I were looking to start a family. We went back to hosting backyard sales at her house and at my house. Neil and I were living in Baldwin, Wisconsin and after hosting a few more sales, I felt the urge to have a building again. We now had our first son and he was 18 months old and I felt I could take him with me to a shop.
We found a building on Main Street in Baldwin. They were asking $1200 for rent and I told him that I could only afford $300. But since the building had sat empty for over a year, he agreed. We rented that space month-to-month for $300 for 6 months. I only planned on a seasonal pop-up shop but things took off so we stayed. The rent slowly increased but with vendors selling and renting sections of the store, it worked.
Then in 2014 another building that I was interested in became available for rent. That is the current location of ReStyle & Co.
The name change happened due to a cease-and-desist letter from Habitat and Humanity ReStore. They had a trademark on the word ReStore. Stressful at the time it worked out fine as people thought that we restored furniture but we didn’t, so we switched it to “ReStyle & Co” and added our names above.
Then after renting for about a year the property became available for sale. We scraped all of our money together, sold our house and purchased the property we currently are at now. At that time we had two boys, Zephyr was four and Briggs was six months. We moved our family into the tiny one floor small farmhouse on the property. There was only one bathroom, and two tiny rooms with no closet. The upstairs attic was not finished and the basement was also an old farmhouse basement. Five days after we moved in we found out I was pregnant with Maverick. Well if he wasn’t in the plan and I was ready to focus on the business it also allowed us to slow down and take things one at a time.
God has a plan because that next summer Hailey and Aidan moved in with us. So in the summer of 2017 living in a two bedroom house with five kids wasn’t going to work. We really wanted to remodel that little farmhouse but it was difficult and costly. We moved our family into a duplex in the adjacent development.
That’s when I spent my Sunday afternoons driving around looking for abandoned farm houses. While still running the shop and figuring out our family, ReStyle & Co. was flourishing. My love for Midwest living and having a farmhouse versus a new build was still strong. Finally I found a house that I thought nobody wasn’t living in, drove by it many times and then one day there was a car for sale there. We called on the car for sale and convinced him to sell us the house. Then we did the whole house move remodel thing over the course of two years. That of course is a whole other story. We finally finished our home and moved in December 2019. After being there for a year with our wild crazy family we decided we needed more space and bought a house north of town on Pine Lake.
Back to ReStyle & Co. we went through remodeling the main store, remodeling the pole barn, remodeling the little farm house, moving the big farmhouse, 2020 pandemic shut down, having a fire, and raising a family!! We now have two Airbnb‘s on the property as well as the pole shed and the main barn.
Looking back, it's amazing that we started from a backyard business to where we are now! I share with you most of the ups and spare you the stress of the downs, it definitely hasn’t been easy but I wouldn’t change it for a thing. God has been so good!
Happy 15 year Anniversary ReStyle & Co!
Thank you to all our customers, family, and friends for supporting us all these years!
Keep reStyling!
Johanna