SHOP NEWS | Three years ago I had a baby.

Me and my Smeetch, 2015.

I first opened Will & Bequeath back in 2012 after leaving my last, traditional, non-freelance office job (in advertising, on the copy editing side), and was very focussed on being a shopmistress for awhile, but the whole baby thing really threw a wrench into my plans. I had a difficult pregnancy. And then my Weebly website started acting up and I had to put the shop on hold. I thought I’d get it sorted and be back in no time, but you know how it is. The universe had other plans

My kiddo was born in 2015 and she is wonderful (so smart and funny and loving), but babies are a real toss of the dice personality-wise.

Some are easy and placid. My kiddo is most decidedly not. (She only seems to need 70% of the sleep that other kids her age do, for example. She stopped napping when she turned two. She’s also never fallen asleep in the car. Ever. Sure, she’s been speaking in full sentences like a five-year-old since she was about 18 months old, and that’s amazing and exciting to witness, but I think sometimes the most verbally and intellectually advanced children can be among the toughest to parent. Anyway.)

And I had no help. Some folks have kind family members and invested friends close by to contribute to childcare, but we haven’t had that luxury. With motherhood on my plate, I just couldn’t manage to keep the shop going.

And then, less than a year later, my husband got a new job and we had to move from Canada down to Durham, North Carolina.

With a baby who hated the car and hated sleep. That was a lot. Again, my plans to reopen Will and Bequeath were foiled.

But after nearly two-and-a-half years in Durham, I finally seem to have found my footing mom-wise and shop-wise. It helps that North Carolina is absolutely incredible for thrifting! There is SO MUCH amazing vintage down here! I furnished my entire house with thrifted finds, and over the past couple of years have started reselling some of that stuff on Craigslist as I found new, better things, and shifted stuff around to accommodate my growing toddler. And this low-level reselling made me realize it was probably time to reopen the shop. It also made me realize I could shift my focus a little.

The rebooted Will and Bequeath will still contain small housewares and decorative objects and fashion pieces that can be shipped (definitely to the lower 48, and likely also to Canada and a few other places as well), but I’ll also be selling larger furniture items that can be picked up here in Durham. (If you’d like a large item shipped, you’ll have to arrange for freight shipping.)

That’s the plan anyway. In addition to uploading new items for sale, I’ll try to blog occasionally about my finds. I’ve learned so much about design and the history of vintage objects in the last 5+ years and I’d love to share some of that knowledge. Anyway, watch this space for more. And welcome back!

P.S. In addition to the shop, I continue to work as a writer, journalist, and general Jen-of-all-trades. If you want to know more about me, read my writing, or just follow along in my ridiculous online life, just stick around on my main site, jenselk.com.