The 'South Shore Shabby Shack & Your Market Place' began as a hobby & passion of old things, repurposing, salvaging old items to bring them new life.   "Picken" was our hobby, which turned a dream of owning our own shop, into a reality.  First with dabbling on eBay in early 2004, selling vintage china, kitchen items, lanterns, depression glass, making enough to support our hobby/habit/addiction.  

We were both always trying to make do with what we had, we were no stranger to painting a piece of furniture, picture frames or other household items, to give a good piece an updated look.  

My wife has always loved arts & crafts and did her share of it with her 2 girls, with scouts and with their schools.  I have enjoyed woodworking from a young age and in my teens, won first prize at State Competition for a full size 'spinning wheel,' that I made.   I worked with my dad in construction in my late teens, early 20's and built my first home.   So, with our love of picken, her love of creating, painting, etc. and my love of wood-working, we decided to try out hand at selling some of the things we'd created.   Selling out of our garage, on Craiglist, etc. we found we enjoyed the process, but quickly outgrew our storage at the house & garage.  We grew from one storage unit to a triple, plus storing still in our garage/workshop & in the barn at property we have.   In the meantime, my wife tried selling clothes, jewelry on a website under a differnt business name and on eBay.   Then one day, while out looking for a cabinet to store our paint, we fell into a business opportunity with a local consignment furniture store owner, to paint her clients furniture, as needed.   We did and began a nice clientele & references.   Then, I started renting space inside the consignment shop, selling items that I'd built, furniture we'd found and painted, some of the inventory we had from eBay and our website boutique. From there, I began renting space from a 2nd location, in another part of the county.   After a coupole of years, we decided that I should open up my own shop, hire someone to run the day to day operation of the store, which I did and now, here we are!   Now with 5K Likes on our multi-vendor (Market Place) Face Book page, 2200K Likes on our own business (South Shore Shabby Shack) Face Book page, we have been in business, since 2013.   

The South Shore Shabby Shack & The Market Place is the 1st multi-vendor vintage & artisan market, in South Shore, opening in September 2nd, 2014.  It was a HIT!   After a minor hiccup with accepting a pushy duo/vendors & agreeing to hire one of them, we learned a hard lesson very soon into our new venture and that was to bring in ONLY the BEST people with the BEST quality products and most of all best character.  

We had a vision from the beginning of how we wanted our business.  There were a lot of shops that had vendors, shops that did furniture painting classes & one that we loved in particular (the 2nd store I rented from), that had a handful of vendors & a women's boutique and hairsalon.    We loved it, but didn't want to mimic it.  We wanted ours to be 'different'... something more fitting our business name, South Shore Shabby Shack.  Growing up near Tampa Bay, Alafia River and hanging out at all the local beaches, a lot of our inspriation comes from the water, the beach, along with the trendy Shabby Chic, French Cottage & Nicely painted furniture makeovers.   Still continuing to do 'custom' work for clients, we wanted the Market Place to be part of the community by offering a variety of arts & crafts classes.  We call ours "Wine & Design" and offer a variety of classes:  Paint Your Own Piece (customers bring a small piece to paint and a bottle of wine, if they choose),  Pallet wood projects where we paint signs. serving tray, holiday items like pumpkins and snowmen, repurposed cutting boards into cookbook/iPad stands.  We have instructors that teach 'one stroke' technique painting wine glasses and other glassware and yet another artist that teaches others to paint pretty works of art on 'canvas.'    Those have been so successful, that we are now opening it up to: "Mom & Me Workshops" & "Pint Size Picasso" classes for children.

Since the beginning, we wanted an inviting, family store, community market.  We have a coffee & tea station & offer free bottles of water.  We host a number of events throughout the year and especially in the as the fall months hit.  From chamber of commerce coffee/breakfast meetings to our own quarterly "Scone Saturday's" - Open Houses, birthday/anniversary celebrations, "Sip & Shop" Customer appreciation Night, Halloween Party with games, treats and prizes, Christmas Open House with Santa.  Garden Market in the spring and monthly markets in the evening, fall through spring...  

For the DIYer, we are the South Shore Retailer for CeCe Caldwell's Paint, carry the full line and offer instruction on use and application.

This past summer (July 2015), we expanded our boutique to include clothing, new, pre-loved & vintage in styles like Boho, Romantic, Lacey, Designer Jeans & other casual clothing & Beach/Coast Casual, for Ladies & Teens.   Now accepting "Consignment" on clothing items in these categories.  

Please, stop in and see what talent we have here in your backyard!!  The talent in our "Shop of Shoppes" will amaze you!!     :)