It Was the Best of Times, It Was the First of Times

Hi ho, ReDo Readers! I’m back from my first week in Chicago, where I staged the furniture sale at the Oak Brook Macy’s Home Store. I have a lot of good decorating ideas, great design schemes and color stories, but best of all, I have a week worth of hard work under my belt, which I’m here to tell you all about. I had a wonderful time and look forward to returning in July for more of the same; but this time, I’ll come better prepared…

Trust me when I say that staging these rooms rooms is physically demanding and mentally challenging; it takes a lot out of you when you’re working with a set amount of furniture pieces and predetermined accessories. To further compound the difficulty, you have to make all that you have stretch as far as you can, using only what’s necessary and figuring out what decorative bits will provide the most impact. Some sets are more easily staged than others; more often I gravitate toward the modern and contemporary designs, where I tend to thrive. But there’s only so much ‘easy’ work for me to do, while leaving the traditional and classic schemes last, which are not my forte. It’s not that I can’t do the latter, it’s just my preference and my aesthetic is more modern and clean in form, lines and furniture silhouettes. Luckily, we started with the modern design rooms.

I’ve had the pleasure of staging the furniture sales the last year or for two at the St. Louis Macy’s, at the Galleria and West County Mall. I worked with Jim White, the District Visual Manager Midwest Region. It was a fantastic experience; and I learned the ‘Macy’s decorating aesthetic’ from him, for staging and the use of props in a room. What was most fun was having the creative license to run amok with the design. Jim really allowed me the freedom within a framework to really show off what I could do for the rooms. It was just me, him and on occasion another manager. But by and large, it was just the two of us, and we learned to work fast to set and dress the rooms.

I thought I was well prepared for Chicago. But it was quite a surprise when I realized that the Oak Brook (IL) Home Store operated on a different scale, altogether! Stock rooms were FULL of accessories and art; with rolling shelving units 15 feet high filled with decorative items and accessories, and whole rooms full of lamps! It was a staging dream! And I got to share this dream with the team of newcomers brought in by the Chicago District Visual Manager, Wade Sheriff. WIth his leadership, our team of five – also including Ed, Agata, and Laura – got right to work, within the ‘Macy’s decorative aesthetic’. Beginning with the contemporary and modern sections, we were like kids in a toy store, having fun with all the various items we had to play with. Despite the fact that we were all new working together, we became a cohesive, collaborative team, and worked very well together. The only real problem we faced was in understanding Wade’s design aesthetic. But after a couple days we were able to better interpret his needs and wants, and give expression to his rooms.

That’s when we hit a bump in the road: we were needed at the Old Orchard store on Wednesday to pull their furniture department together in time for a corporate visit the next day! No matter how much you think you can take a successful working process and repeat it in another setting, you will inevitably discover that the learning curve must still be included in that process. It didn’t matter that we’d found our groove in the first two days at the Oak Brook Home Store– we were now in a different setting, and had to focus on using many of the same items and decorative tchotchke in different ways, to accomodate different furniture. We were doing it with two fewer people, and we had to do it fast and on the fly! This day was the most challenging, and this was where I began to doubt my ability to continue to interpret Wade’s vision. However, we stayed late, we got the job done, and the other Macy’s employees really appreciated the work we did.

And, by Thursday, we were on a roll! It didn’t matter that we were ready for the ICU by Wednesday, physically and mentally exhausted – or that we still had to tackle the traditional and classic rooms – we were ready and raring to go the next day! Wade had to be at the State Street store for some meetings and additional work, so he left us to our own devices, and here’s where we really shined as a team. Having been given a list of to-do’s the previous day, we set about making sure we got them ALL done – and then some. We placed art against the walls where we wanted it, collaborated on design schemes for the various spaces, pulled out accessories based on color stories and visual elements, and we pulled it all together in a day. We were so happy with the work we had done; the best part was that on Friday, when Wade came back for a review and walk through, he was pleased as well. Barring a few minor aesthetic tweaks, he liked our work, and I really grew to appreciate my instant team even more. We spent Friday afternoon on our own again, and we completed the store – all 80,000 square feet – by 5:30PM. I can’t speak for the others, but I walked away from that job feeling like I had overcome my anxiety and fears, and faced up to the challenges.

So now I’m back in St. Louis for a couple weeks; I’ll start on the two local stores the first week of July, and then I’m back in Chicago for two weeks mid-month to complete and tweak what we did at Old Orchard, then tackle the State Street store in what’s being called the ‘State Street Blitz’, where the team, and a handful of Wade’s peers from other districts, will spend an intense number of days making this flagship iconic store shine. Again, it’ll be one of the best of times. And another first for me!