This month marks The Nest’s first Christmas season in a new location and owner Stephanie Talty is as happy and busy as a chickadee who has found a new stash of seeds.
The shop at 153 Main Street on Chardon Square is pleasantly full of hand-crafted Christmas items, furniture chic-ly refinished, and a wide variety of house dcor articles lovingly created to make any abode into a home.
“Everybody should love where they live. Surround yourself with things that make you happy,” Talty said.
Her store is like the niche in a tree where a bird might, indeed, build a nest — convenient, safe and carefully tended by the self-proclaimed homebody.
“The Nest is me — it needed to reflect us,” she said.
The Main Street location is not the first she and husband Kevin filled with their wares, imagination and energy.
Having spent 12 years teaching first-graders in inner-city Cleveland, Talty, now 37, had tired of the 40-minute-one-way drive and being away from her husband and their son, Andrew. It was time for a change.
“Kevin and I had always wanted a shop,” she said, adding their skills are complementary for the kind of business they wanted to start.
But finding the right place in their native hometown was a challenge.
On Good Friday 2013, the couple went to explore a possible site in The Finch Building on Water Street in Chardon.
Although they didn’t hold out a lot of hope, the Taltys walked into a room and on a block wall painted in big, black letters was the word CLETUS, she recalls.
“It was my husband’s grandfather’s name,” she said. If that wasn’t enough of a sign, there was more.
“Cletus died on a Good Friday. Of all the places in Chardon, we ended up there,” she said.
Talty opened the Water Street Nest in August 2013 and found the long hours and hard work rewarding. Building the business, finding other like-minded crafters to build inventory and developing a customer base kept her flying.
When the Main Street location became available last summer, the couple achieved their dream of a storefront on Chardon Square, and they are confident business will be good.
“I earned my stripes off the square,” Talty said. “It was a good move. The community has embraced The Nest more than I could have imagined.”
She continues to paint all the solid, wood, antique furniture in the shop and produces about half the home decorating items for sale as well as taking care of the merchandizing and minding the store. A number of friends and relatives supply the rest of the items, from gift cards to cookies.
Talty also started a club of about 25 crafters who meet once a week at the back of The Nest and has become wildly popular.
“Craft club became a beast of its own. It brings a group of creative ladies together. They make a home dcor craft and take it home,” she said.
The camaraderie is a big draw, but her club likes the activity as well.
“Not many people do anything with their hands these days,” Talty said, adding she is planning to host a ladies’ night Jan. 30 at The Nest in appreciation of her customers.
Behind the scenes, her husband does carpentry demands, both for the shop and for items the craft club needs.
“Kevin’s my right-arm man. With-out him, craft club and The Nest would not be possible,” Talty said. “He’s the backbone of the store. I call him Mr. Nest.”
Both grew up in Chardon and started dating in high school, graduating in 1997.
Andrew, in third grade at St. Mary School in Chardon, is learning about the business and about giving back to the community, which has been very supportive, Talty said.
In return, Talty tries to buy her supplies locally and shops as much as possible in the area, where she finds quality items and materials, resulting in constantly rotating inventory customers know will give years of joy.
“I don’t put anything in the store I wouldn’t give as a gift,” she said.
The Nest’s vendors, all local, include: Love Designs Jewelry, Joy Beninngton and Hannah Forester; My Color Pallet, Jen Fekete; Cottage Rose Dcor, Amber Love; Handmade Cards, Jen Warne; Hand Painted Cards, Catherine Kipp; Essence Maker Aromatherapy, Tracy Knake; Earth Eats, Kristen Gabriel and Sweet Love Cookies, Crystal Cassesa.
