A whole new world

Welcome to Mercantile Muse, the blogging extension of Bates Mercantile Co.  I am very happy to finally be blogging, as it's been a long time coming.  I'm obviously new at this, so I hope you'll give me some lee-way.  I hope to share inspiration with you and a little bit of daily life at the 'Mercantile'. It's certain that I will touch upon many subjects including, but not limited to: interior design, graphic design, gardening, writing, pr, food, art, advertising/marketing, and the good life in general.

First off, a little bit of background. I've had my own business, Speakeasy, for 17 years. I work with my clients to grow their business through a combination of public relations, marketing and advertising. Any given day can find me writing a press release, designing a logo or ad, planning an advertising or marketing campaign, among many other things. As a one girl show, I wear many hats.

That said, I was hankering to be able to do more 'creating' for the sake of 'creating'. So I, along with my other half, began Bates Mercantile Co. We launched our etsy shop in December 2010 and have really been enjoying meeting other etsy shop owners, as well as people from all over the world who have like our stuff enough to buy it (yay!). 

Here's the the two of us - otherwise known as Pam and Gar:

Here we are in Cashel, Ireland on our way to visit friends in Blarney. 
We travel to Ireland as often as we can, since that's where Garrett
is from (he's a Dubliner) and most of his family is, and
also where my best friend has lived for 17 years.

At Bates Mercantile Co. you will find original printable wall art and stationery, and must-have-vintage items.  I do the 'creating of the printables' and Garrett helps with researching our vintage items and acts as Chief Sounding Board & Cheerleader.

We've learned a lot over the last few years as we doubled the size of our little cottage with an addition we built ourselves with a LOT of help from family and friends.  We're getting there but still have final touches to tackle.

Our new bedroom still makes me happy everyday, especially in consideration of the fact that for 12 years I had to turn sideways to move around the bed and couldn't open my dresser drawers all the way.

Al (our brother in law) and Gar putting up sheetrock in the
 new master bedroom. I hate the entire sheetrock
 process and I don't mind saying so. What a mess.



But I do love my bedroom, so I guess all the sheetrock dust
 and hard work was worth it. And in case you're wondering, I was a full fledged crew member-
from tarring the foundation, insulating and yes, even mudding and sanding sheetrock. 



We're still decorating, and what that means is there is a lot of editing going on. We had a LOT of stuff. Keeping what we love and losing the rest.  I love browsing magazines and the internet for design inspiration, but honestly, I find it just about anywhere!

Good things in no particular order: 

friends and family
our hound dog Lucan

creating

inspiring and eclectic interior design

food prepared with love

all kinds of music

laughing

margaritas

dancing

nature

Dublin

sunsets

a cold beer and steamers

singing

M*A*S*H

entertaining and parties to remember

NYC (where we met)

reading
Skype

old movies

South Street Seaport on a beautiful day

dreaming of our second visit to Rome/Italy (once was not enough)

living on the New Hampshire seacoast

I reserve the right to add to this list whenever I want.

So, I hope you'll come along for the ride and many thanks for stopping by.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE..........the first 25 followers of Mercantile Muse will be entered into a drawing for one of our printable wall art designs (your choice)....so follow, won't you?