The Bluegrass Vintage Story

Hi there!

I’m so glad you stopped by to check out our site and what we have to offer. I’m Erica and I’m the owner of Bluegrass Vintage. My husband, Gabe, and I have been married for 8 years and we currently live in Northern Kentucky. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Education, and spent nine years teaching high school Family & Consumer Science. While I was (and still am!) passionate about the subject that I taught and my students whom I taught, I always found myself wanting to do something more. The first hobby I picked up while teaching was cake-decorating. I practiced after school and on the weekends, and this quickly grew into a pretty profitable small business! From that time, I knew deep down inside that I would love to own my own small business someday. There was just something about making people happy with hand-made items that was so fulfilling to me!

Three years into my career, our jobs took us from Southeast Ohio to Northern Kentucky, where I took another position teaching high school Family & Consumer Science. My husband and I bought our first home, which was a foreclosure, so it was a complete fixer-upper. We had both grown up with DIY dads, so we had some basic skills, but we learned SO MUCH during the reno process! This is really where Bluegrass Vintage came to be. Gabe and I were 4 and 5 hours, respectively, from our families, so we had to learn and do everything on our own. We were too cheap (and too broke!) to hire out contractors, so if we didn’t know how to do something, we had to learn ourselves, and learn we did! I put my side cake business on hold (I really had no clients and definitely had no kitchen during our reno), and got my hands dirty helping Gabe. We washed down every surface of our 2800 sq. ft. home with ammonia and TSP to remove all traces of cigarette and tar residue, then primed, painted, ripped out, and/or covered up until our home was nearly brand new. We painted cabinets, laid hardwood, ripped out tile, rearranged the footprint of the kitchen, and everything in between. I learned some basic carpentry skills and how to use power tools, and quickly grew to love woodworking and building things.

After our home was (almost) complete, I felt that little nudge inside that it was time to start a business again. I began making cakes for friends and co-workers, but also experimented with some woodworking and sewing (a skill I’d had since I was a little girl) projects, as well. In 2017, I decided to take what I felt was a major leap in the small business world and apply to be a vendor at my first juried craft show. Not knowing what to expect, I burned the midnight oil for nearly a month, still teaching full time, and cranked out lots of wood and embroidery projects to sell. The show was a great success and I landed some custom jobs afterwards! I had some confidence that I could potentially make this a lucrative business.