I Like To Move It, Move It!

Here we are, again ReDo Readers, at the end of another week. I’ve been gadding about Chicago, having a remarkable time staging for Macy’s furniture department in several stores, but I’m back home in St. Louis now, attempting to catch up on all that I’ve missed the last three weeks. As I continue to get my feet firmly on the ground and get back into my routine, I’ll be able to bring you a more timely blog entry, as promised, starting next week. In the meantime, I’ve come to the end of this project journey, and along the way I’ve been thrilled with the work done, the connections made, and the experiences I’ve had while woking on this assignment. Through it all I feel renewed and inspired, and full of decorating ideas, tips and tricks to dress your home and office. So let me tell you the tale of my last week of staging for Macy’s at the grand Marshall Fields State Street Store. It was awesome; and you’re gonna love it!

Normally, to my knowledge, Macy’s hires people like me (freelancers) to set up and stage their twice-a-year furniture sales. They no longer have the budget to keep a team of full-time stagers on hand so they hire us seasonally, for the set up and dressing of the department. Each floor plan for the upcoming sale is created and approved months in advance, then tweaked along the way to accommodate minor changes to the furniture line up. Bearing this in mind, the end result from what happened last week was nothing short of miraculous. Similar to my experience at the St. Louis Galleria store earlier this month, where the furniture was to be dropped (set) before we arrived, this was a complete last-minute floor flip of Herculean proportions! It all came out of one short visit from my bosses-bosses-boss– the big guy, the VP of Visual Merchandising for Big Ticket for Macy’s (and though I’m not completely sure of his title, I think you get the gist of just how far up the ladder he is). And just like playing the old fashioned tile game, where you have to move random tiles up and down, left and right to eventually create an image, this floor move was just like that: you move one thing, and then you have to move EVERYTHING. So the Friday before Monday, the day I was to start at State Street, my boss, Wade Sheriff, now had to recreate the entire furniture department floor plan and rearrange all the sets to accommodate this one requested move by the VP. Needless to say, Wade had a very, very long weekend mapping out the new plan…

Monday arrived and so did I, at 9AM, ready and happy to start work. But, like the Galleria, there was nothing to decorate – Wade had just completed the floor plan on paper. We still had to move and flip everything – all 100,000 square feet of furniture! Luckily, there was a small work crew of five or six in-house folks on hand for big stuff, but even better, Wade’s peers from across the North East Division were onsite to assist with this massive move! Talk about a cast of talent and creativity! From Minneapolis and Detroit, Boston, DC, New Jersey, New York, and all parts in between, I got to work with some of the most dynamic, fun, and energetic people I’ve ever met: Wade (my boss), John (Wade’s boss), Suzi, Brian, Jason, Amy, Bill, plus Dave and another Bill, two of the big names from Corporate Operations (I’ve left out everyone’s last names as I’ve not asked them all if I can mention them in this blog). Once we banded together, we moved that entire floor in a day, collaborating and celebrating along the way so we could begin the earnest work of decorating in time for a return visit from the VP the upcoming Friday!

It was hard work, pushing and pulling beds, dressers, armoires, TV stands and bookcases, chairs, couches, recliners in all shapes, sizes and textures…from ‘that space’ to ‘over there’, and sometime back again – it got to the point where the design was becoming an organic process due to the time and space constraints. Don’t forget: what works on paper doesn’t always work in reality, and we were more than willing to go with the flow to make the overall look and appearance work, even if it wasn’t included on the floor plan. By the end of the first day, I was tired, sore, worn out, and had sweat through my clothes at least three times from exertion; it didn’t matter that the department was air-conditioned – the A/C wasn’t turned on until the store opened! Since heat rises, the eighth floor was most definitely overly warm and uncomfortable for the first few hours of the day. Regardless of our personal discomfort, this team of talent was determined and unstoppable!

Tuesday rolled in and I was excited – even antsy – to start the decorating process now that the furniture was placed according to the new floor plan. Ed, Laura and Agata, the other freelancers I worked with at the Oak Brook Home Store and Old Orchard store, were on hand as well this day. I thought I’d be given a certain area and have that freedom to go to town with the aesthetic; however, I was paired with one of the visiting Big Ticket Visual Merchandisers: Suzi, from the Detroit and Minneapolis market. All I can say is that we were a match made in decorator’s heaven! We were two peas in the same pod – merchandising mates – and with our combined efforts and equal amounts of energy and creativity, we plowed right through our rooms in modern and contemporary furniture, then on to ‘neo’ and ‘better neo’ (smaller sized pieces, city living inspired), then on to traditional. With everyone on board working hard and applying their magic with so much passion, tenacity and talent, the floor was fully decorated by the end of the work day Thursday.

Personally, facing what we were tasked with the previous Friday, the completion of the project a day early was nothing short of miraculous. When we decided that it was time to quit for the day, I had never been happier with such collaborative efforts from coworkers; the attitudes, styles, and encouragement from these wonderful people made this particular project a true joy, and an experience I will never forget. I learned some great tricks for making a space appear bigger, tips for stretching a color story and for giving balance and presence in a space, and ideas for pulling a room together using minimum items for maximum effect. But the best thing of all is that I made new friends and colleagues, and established relationships for potential opportunities to take this staging aspect of ReDo to other Macy’s locations. I mean, with Macy’s as a client, who knows what’s next? All I know is that for me, this story is far from over, and with any luck, I’ll get to write another blog about this six months down the road should I be asked to come back and do it all over again. I really do like to move it, move it!