Timeless treasures
By Sierra Henry
Published in News on August 17, 2018 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Stallings features items from three vendors who have rooms at her store along with new items that come in from individuals.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Denise Stallings, at the front desk inside Lil D's Consignments, takes photos of a pair of candlesticks she plans to list as for sale on the business Facebook site.
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
The Royall Marketplace, at 2805 Royall Ave., is a used, vintage and consignment store on Royal Avenue that uses a vendor-based model. They opened in January of this year.
Denise Stallings wants her customers to be taken back to the past every time they walk through the rustic screen door of her store.
The reason is simple. She is selling vintage items -- chinaware from the 1930s, high-end milk glasses and even silverware. Trinkets, furniture and other odds and ends that are not found in the average thrift shop are all stacked and displayed on bookcases, desks and tables in her small blue house off of Royall Avenue.
To her, the screen door is more than the entryway to her shop. It is a physical reminder of the times she spent at her grandmother's house. It is the way it creeks when it opens and how it slams when it shuts that takes her and so many others back to that time period.
"That's what I remember the most about my grandmother's place, that vintage screen door," Stalling said.
After her initial business of buying and selling items from estate sales outgrew her garage, Stallings realized she needed to expand. That's when she found her house at 2707 Royall Ave. -- the perfect place to house and sell her timeless items. The only thing that was missing, she said, was the vintage screen door.
Today, Lil D's antique store and consignments looks like any other residential home in the area. Its painted panels are weathered, the lawn is decorated with small ornamental teacups that sway in the breeze. Inside is a treasure trove of items for sale that Stallings and her vendors have collected, priced and displayed for customers.
Unlike thrift stores, Stallings said that antique stores generally carry items that are Depression era, high-end glass or china. Antique stores such as Lil D's, Royall Marketplace, the Antique Mall and Manifest Home Antiques and Mercantile won't carry appliances or clothes, she said.
"Thrift stores usually carry appliances, clothes -- that's the biggest difference is the thrift stores will do the household appliances, all the different clothes, the kids' stuff and they don't do a lot on the older antique end," Stalling said. "Most of ours is the older, Depression glass, the cut glass. It's more on the antique end of it than it is the dollar or two stuff that you would get at a thrift store."
Most of Stalling's customers find her shop through word of mouth or are a part of her Facebook group Wayne County Estate Sales, where she lists and prices items to sell. Eighty percent of her antiques never touch the store floor, she said, and are bought online. Other items, she unpacks from boxes that are brought in by customers looking to set up consignment accounts or just simply want to get rid of.
"I loved it. It's like Christmas -- unpacking stuff that's been packed up forever and you never know what it is, and I loved that," Stallings said. "If you told me that I had to pack up and move my house, I'd probably have a break down but just because this isn't my stuff -- I have no idea what it is.
"Very rarely do we not run across something that is really cool, or something that -- oh my god, I have no idea what it is."
If a customer comes in looking for a specific item Stallings does not have, or if they are looking for specific furniture items, she will send them to one of the other antique stores in the area. Shops like the Royall Marketplace often have plenty of furniture and other home furnishings for customers to peruse.
"The girls (at Royall Market) are great as far as working together, because I think we all know in this wonderful world we live in, if us little ones don't work together, there ain't none of us gonna make it," Stallings said. "Depending on what they're looking for, if I don't have it, I'm going to send them to one of the other girls. Pay it forward, point blank. You've got to because if not, we'll all drown."
According to Patti Bigley and Robin Guevremont of Royall Marketplace, each antique store has a different personality and feel to it. Even the vendors who rent out their space in the market have unique ways of decorating and displaying items for customers.
"Everybody carries something a little bit different so, if we know from looking at pictures on Facebook, we've seen something and somebody says, 'well I need this,' and we've seen it, we'll send them over there," Bigley said.
Bigley and Guevremont met at an auction in Wilmington where they were both looking to buy antiques they might want or sell.
Guevremont, who first started buying and selling antiques in 1999, had a similar issue as Stallings when she first began her business.
"We just started going to auctions and we were buying for ourselves, but you would get stuff in the box and stuff that you didn't want, so you needed a way to liquidate it," Guevremont said. "My husband started selling it on eBay and found out it was pretty lucrative to do that, and it just kind of grew from there."
Like Stallings, Guevremont and Bigley enjoy finding the unique antiques and old pieces of furniture that enter their store. Although they cannot purchase every item, they love seeing the different items.
"I love the turnover," Bigley said. "When you're lookin' at a piece and you see this patina on it and it's like, oh my gosh this is beautiful -- what it's done with the wood and stain and the age on it."
Guevremont and Bigley now manage multiple vendors in their marketplace. Vendors rent space from the Royall Marketplace to sell items that they are wanting to get rid of, whether it's furniture or other items that were from a family member who passed away or they are downsizing.
Sometimes the vendors go to estate sales, auctions or yard sales to find their items, which the market allows them to sell out of their building depending on how much room there is. Each vendor also has the opportunity to set up their display however they want, which gets to show off their unique items and personality.
"Each vendor has their own little store within a store," Guevremont said.
The Royall Marketplace is located at 2805 Royall Avenue. To rent, vendors pay $2 per square feet and the store keeps 10 percent of sales. For more information, contact 919-947-6269 or visit www.royallmarketplace.com.
"We just aim to make our space feel relaxing to everybody that comes in. We want to make everybody feel welcome. We enjoy meeting every one of them -- we've made a lot of friends. It's been great," Guevremont said.
"We would like more young people to start coming in and enjoy vintage and antique buying as well."