website: www.etsy.com/shop/WeHaveAGreatNotion
group: www.facebook.com/groups/611359535583920
page: www.facebook.com/WHAGN

Three years ago, After five years of watching the verbal abuse and being subjected to it myself I finally had enough. I (Karen) walked out of my full-time job. One of my bosses screamed at me with his finger less than an inch from my nose that "he could do and say whatever he wanted to me and there was nothing I could do about it". It took me all of a few seconds to say "yes there is, I'm done", and I walked out the door. I found part-time work the next day doing home care.
Having a couple of days a week free now, I went to Michelle and said why don't we finally try making those cute little signs we see everywhere. We’d joked about it for years. So we sawed up some pallets, gathered paint and embellishments, and started making the signs in Michelle's kitchen. We quickly started listing them on Michelle's old etsy account and decided to test them out at a small church craft fair. We got such positive feedback from everyone who came by our table it gave us some hope and excited us to keep moving forward. People shopping our etsy site liked our sign style and customers started requesting custom work for holiday gifts. There was no looking back now, just sign making as fast as we could!
Michelle's husband didn't like all the supplies around the kitchen and I didn't like toting everything every day in and out of my car. Meanwhile, this whole time our brains are going a mile a minute with all the plans for the things we wanted to make and repurpose, but we had no room to do it all in. Michelle's house was already overcrowded with her five children and my house has no basement or garage for us to work in. Eventually I was approached by an acquaintance about renting space in his family's strip of commercial spaces. The idea was we would run a small second hand shop and gain a workshop space to work in. We had started to make benches out of abandoned bed frames and had lots of ideas to repurpose or refinish furniture and again just needed more space. So with tons of fear and trepidation we did exactly that. The shop (Deja Vu) paid the overhead for the space from the start and so we were hopeful it was going to work. That was two years ago and we now know we will never succeed in such a small space.
We have been custom making repurposed glass serving towers and birdbaths, refinishing dressers, vanities and so many other unique one of a kind pieces locally and to ship around the country. We’ve done shabby chic, repurposed pieces, vanities for little girls and for Queens, and so much more. Our furniture orders are weeks behind as we can only work on one piece at a time due to the lack of workspace. We needed to get more done at a time for our customers and for us as well as we still weren’t getting paid because the completed orders were too far apart. If we wanted to run a sufficient business for pure joy, being green and no pay we most definitely succeeded. Alas, two years of only PT pay and I'm about to have my whole world crash down on me & my son because of the lack of money to survive. Michelle's hubby is still waiting for that second income for their family of seven.
Being the stubborn and determined women we are, we’ve decided to give one last real push. We love creating new pieces to make our customers happy and leave our mark in this world…We are saving old furniture from being added to the landfills and turning them into new updated pieces to beautify your space…and we create new signs out of old wood to be treasured on the walls of your homes. We have the orders and lots of interest so we are hoping with the gracious help of wonderful people who understand what it is to want to bring a dream alive that we can move our shop and workshop to the Old Pin Shops space in Oakville & purchase a box truck to transport our furniture in. Double the work space, double the storage, and double the shop space. Oh yeah, and double the overhead too. We really can’t afford to take this jump yet but we are going forward with faith and hope in our hearts that our dream will work out. Our new location will be called "We Have A Great Notion!" because we are so full of great ideas! Thanks to our FB page and group, we have met so many supportive, wonderful people we feel like maybe it is our time to finally shine.