We were thrilled to be joined by friends, family, and members of our local Keep It Casual community to celebrate our move to our fabulous new location.
We made a move, and we made it big!
We knew it was time for a change, so we made that change.
We bought a cool old building and renovated it for our purposes.
The building was constructed in 1977 to house a jewelry store. The general contractor had lived many years in California, so he brought his knowledge of constructing a building to stand through an earthquake. He dug concrete pilings deep into the ground, poured a concrete floor, then built the walls of 12" of solid concrete on top of those pilings. He made the roof of steel beams supporting tiles of blended concrete and vermiculite. For added safety, he added the small doors and windows secured with bulletproof glass. If anyone got through those doors, they would find the gems secured in a 5x8 walk-in vault with a super secure antique door with double locks. We found yellowed blueprints and construction drawings in every drawer and cabinet. We spent lots of time with the original owner, learning the history of the structure itself, the business that occupied its walls for so many years, and many of the interesting bits and pieces of the history of all of the above.
We took an already amazing architectural structure and gave it a new purpose.
We took an already successful outdoor and casual store, and gave it a facelift, too.
Starting from Scratch
Keep It Casual has been around since 2002. In those days, the business model for an outdoor and casual store was to get the biggest space you could afford, fill it to the brim with all ranges of furniture, stock a warehouse full of similar items bought by the truckload, and sell it all. Then do it all over again.
The industry has changed over the last 18 years, and we realized we needed to change with it. The top quality companies in the market had shifted to more design-oriented business models. With more and more options for customized finishes and fabrics, as well as made-to-order specializations, our business became less about what you could buy off the sales floor and more about making it your very own. We adopted that model for ourselves, reduced the size of our showroom by over half, and turned our focus to custom design services.
So we found our place...
We moved into an amazing building, but that was only the beginning. We rebranded ourselves with a new location, a new logo, new color scheme, new team, and a new vision.
Here we are 2 years later, and we love what we have created. We have a beautiful space, an incredible team, huge support from our vendors, and a fantastic response from our clients. A huge thanks to all our clients who have stood by us for all these years, and to the new customers and friends who walk through our doors every day. You are the reason we do what we do.
We look forward to serving our community for years to come!