For the past two holiday seasons, I have been hired by Tenleytown Ace  Hardware in Washington DC to dress their store window.  The set up is unique – the store itself sits under two other retailers (Container Store and Best Buy). Customers enter the store through the underground parking garage and  the store space also includes a small room/store window on the street level. The store tends to stay pretty busy so the space is constantly overlooked by staff. This past December, I featured both Benjamin Moore paints and Hunter Douglas custom blinds in the window, as this store sells both product lines.

In January, while taking down the holiday decor, I thought it might be cool to dress the windows for January and February, since there were not plans for the space.  The store owners allow me to design and implement as I wish, as long as the majority of items are things sold in the store itself.  I didn’t want to use any of the snow-removal gear (shovels, sand, salt, etc) for the window – someone might need it! Finally I decided to focus on lighting  and paint.

I decided to use compact fluorescent lighting (CFLs) in the window since these are more energy efficient than the traditional incandescent lights AND will be the standard bulb very soon. Additionally, Benjamin Moore was gracious to give us empty cans and great colorful labels to use in the window. My friend and paper sculpture artist Caroline helped me with the plan  – she had the sign printed and made the large white tissue paper flowers. They stand out really well against the red background. This picture was a close up of hanging the large flowers, light bulbs and sign as I am hanging them from the ceiling. The space is just about 5×8, with a 9 ft ceiling.

The next photo is another close up and is one of my favorite. It is another one taken while I am working on hanging everything in the window- I just think it looks cool as ever!  Looks like I am living in the clouds!  Here I have add the white tissue flowers and tissue balls and start to fill in the space.   






The last picture highlights the finished product – the whole window. This gives you a sense of how the window looks from the street, and not from my ladder (like the above two photos).   Not sure this pictures really demonstrates how odd the shape is but there are lots of angles!  Hopefully it will encourage people to remember their lighting and considering adding color on their walls to help uplift their spirit in the cold drab days of winter!  I can’t wait until Spring – there will be so much more to put in and highlight in the store windows. now THAT will be fun!

view from the street

Tags: ace hardware, color help, dc home stager, Pantone color

This entry was posted on January 21, 2011 at 5:22 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in color, decorating, lighting, Shopping, weather by rrashfor | Comments Off