OH MY GOSH...

If you are a PJP fan, you likely know that Jeanne took last week away from PJP Buttonwood to resolve some of our troubling merchandising issues.  And in my blogging last week, I shouted to the World Wide Web that I REALLY REALLY REALLY missed her.  A lot of customers and good friends stopped by to check on me and a few Inner Circle peeps were on the receiving end of my woeful text messages that suggested PJP isn't PJP without Jeanne and whatever she was building better be worth me running a one-woman show. You might remember that in April, we purchased a three-tier display unit from a business that had recently closed.  It was, without question, an unremarkable piece of furniture.  Where we wanted a bold statement piece, our purchase was merely a quiet sigh.  But with our opening date quickly approaching at PJP Buttonwood, we needed something - really, anything - to display the pies available for sale.  And that is the charming story of how we ended up here...

I wish PJP had a dollar for every time that a potential customer walked in, sailed immediately past our bland three-tier display, walked to the counter and said "do you actually have any pie for sale here?"  And so after hearing that a few too many times and after extensive consultation with our beloved Caroline Leemis of Caroline Leemis Design, Jeanne crafted a plan.  And when Jeanne has a plan, she is a little like a dog with a bone...meaning it is best to just get out of her way and let her do her thing.  All she needed from me was a solid week away from the shop to saw and measure.

And after a long week, she and her husband Dale arrived from their workshop with her vision in tow.  She wouldn't let me see anything until a significant portion of the install had happened.  And when I could resist no longer, I arrived to find this...

And I immediately fell into an unending love.  Even not completely finished with sawdust on the floor, PJP Buttonwood was a transformed space.

We started the next morning with figuring out how we want to use the space.  Because Jeanne and Dale are 4,292 times better at measuring and planning that I can ever hope to be, they created each box in the perfect dimension to hold both the nine-inch and five-inch version of each pie.  Now a customer can easily find the box for their favorite pie and quickly discern what stock we have available.

When she wasn't busy putting Bob Vila's skills to shame, Jeanne also ordered 15 glass pie displays from Target and in perfect universe alignment, they were delivered to my house on Tuesday.  (On a side note, the UPS man for our neighborhood has to be wondering what the heck I do for a living.)  Her vision was to display a nine-inch version of the pie next to the pies available for sale.  So, for example, a glass dome displays a fresh nine-inch apple pie in the box next to the available apple pies for sale.  And so...

I know, right?  I fall in love a little bit more each time I look at it.  And here is the thing about Jeanne...it isn't so much that she built it...it is that she never questioned she could build exactly what she had in mind to transform our entry way.  She's pretty cool that way.

So stop by and see our new foyer soon.  Bonus points if you stop in your tracks and scream "OH MY GOSH, THIS IS AMAZING!  I LOVE IT!".