Land of Milk and Honey, Land of Illusion

Howdy, readers of the ReDo blog! Welcome back to another thrilling installment of — wait, wrong show! This week’s lil’ ditty is a little late due to travel – I’m in Chicago for the next Macy’s staging gig – but the blog is all about that, about going with the flow, rolling with the punches, and making the most of any situation using your wits and abilities with limited resources… I’m talking about staging two different Macy’s furniture departments, and just how challenging (and vastly different) each can be. Have a sit, and let me unspool the story for you…

I’ve staged for Macy’s before, in preparation for their furniture sale. The first time was very exciting, and I felt untethered, scurrying about the West County (St. Louis) Mall furniture department, seeking what treasures could be found in the stock and display rooms. That very first time I was allowed to be free to work my magic in a loose framework of design rules and expectations. Though I adhered to what I was advised to do, and how to do it, I still pretty much had free reign of the design concept and execution. That first time, there was a vast array of accessories to work with: art, lamps, pillows, bedding, books, tchotchke – all the trimmings and trappings to ‘fluff’ a space and make it looked “lived in,” and most importantly, relatable to the store’s targeted consumer. I went a little overboard – at first – but scaled down my grand designs and color stories and simplified the look. I learned a lot that first time working with Jim White, and I value his input and guidance as we continue to work on the various sale sets each season.

This most recent set was truly a challenge, compared to the last two – where I had vast amounts of decorative accessories to use before, I was reduced to a piddling sum of items, a modicum of necessities which, when stretched to their useful limits, made me question how I decorated the vignettes even more than before. Having a lot of accessories to work with can be a double-edged sword: you either have more than enough to use and spend your time second-guessing your work, or you spend more time thinking about the concept and carefully selecting the right pieces to make the setting pop. The bottom line is that the time you have to use for the project is finite, and when you’re working between two stores in one 40-hour week, time is a luxury you don’t have. Last week pushed this sword deeper into the heart of the challenge as one store had plenty of accessories, and the other had very little – and the stores do not share their toys, so you work with what you have, period. Let’s just say that shifting mental gears was the normal state of being last week.

The title of this week’s blog represents those shifting creative gears where, when working with the same furniture at both locations, one place offered all you needed to get the job done, and another expected results with less than the bare necessities and a good deal of slight of hand to fool the eye. If you recall from my previous blog, the Macy’s Home Store in Oak Brook had “stock rooms FULL of accessories and art; with rolling shelving units 15 feet high filled with decorative items and accessories, and whole storage rooms full of lamps! It was a staging dream!” West County Mall? Not so much. Where before I’d had access to a long slender stock room with shelves of art and accessories, now I was down to a storage facility for housewares and boxed dish sets, with a small corner of shelving relegated as an afterthought for a handful of decorative items and art – this means that over 90% of the previous decorative items were sold, and not replaced! But still, facing that challenge head-on, our team really tackled each space with creative zeal, even stretching the concept of art by painting large tan circles and stripes on some walls to lend a degree of interest to the space, and to tie one area into another. We were able to complete the West County Mall set in two days – I thought we did a great job even with the handicap.

Then along came the Galleria, and here’s where the gears shifted and we were in overdrive. The floor was to be set Wednesday, meaning all the furniture was to be in place on it’s pad for us to come in and decorate. But, due to a shortage of available employees in the ’setting up and heaving lifting of large furniture items’ department, we had to do this ourselves. Needless to say, our third day was painful – literally – as we moved and placed the furniture where it was needed according to the sale floor plan. Thank heavens we had a couple extra people from others stores (whose jobs were NOT in the ’setting up and heaving lifting of large furniture items’ department) to lend a hand. By the end of day three we were tired, achy and sore, but the floor was set, and all we had to do in the next two days was decorate. On your marks, get set, GO!

Thursday, day four, had the potential to be a real killer – it was an 11 hour day. From 8:30 in the morning to 7:30 that evening, we decorated as fast and as best we could, just Jim and me using decorative and knick-knacks a-plenty. It’s always nice to be able to say you don’t need to use something and then put it back in the storage room. There was enough art and tchotchke to go around, and we made it work! By the time we finished that evening, the department was nearly done, and we could rest a little easier knowing we kicked butt and brought our best game strategy into play. We were so tired, but we were thrilled with the results! So come Friday, we just had to tweak a few things here and there, photograph the work in both stores, and bask in the knowledge of a job well done.

The final word on the matter is this: just because you have a lot of items to play with doesn’t mean you need to use everything you have in your arsenal. More often than not, if you simplify the process and use just the minimal of what you need, you can achieve the look you want without it being overdone or overdressed – sort of being able to know the difference between an ‘outfit’ and a ‘get-up’. With a little creativity and slight of hand, your decorative illusion can look like a million bucks, and sweet as milk and honey!