We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carrie Lamping a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carrie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

It has always been my dream to own a small retail boutique in a historic, walkable community. My husband Matt and I resigned from our full time jobs and entered a semi-retirement period during the COVID lockdowns. It was during this time that our vision started to take place. We started by looking at retail spaces for lease. Most of the available properties were in strip-style malls which of course did not align with our vision. We wanted to be in a historic property in a walkable shopping district. After a few weeks of patience, we found a National Register historic home in Montgomery, OH. Once we signed the lease, we were ready to start!

Selling re-imagined antique furniture and vintage items was our initial vision. So during our search for a property, we spent a great deal of time procuring items from estate sales and flea markets to turn into our creations! However, even though my husband and I are creative, we realized that we had to offer other products as well given the length of time and effort involved with rehabbing old furniture and other items. So we started procuring vintage jewelry, house /kitchen decor, paintings/artwork and other unique collectibles. We spent the majority of our time hand-selecting items for resale. This has further evolved into the procurement of cool food and bar/entertainment items, and locally sourced products.

It has been quite a learning process, and we quickly realized it’s not as simple as slapping tags on items and collecting cash. We had to evaluate inventory management and how to track each unique product, POS systems, retail display fixtures, signage, permitting, business registration, taxes, vendors, leasing, branding, website, labels, tags, logos and more!

Carrie , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The name of our boutique store is called Gilded Indigo. Our three children helped us create the name and we thought it reflected the hand-selected and unique items we offer.

We are located in historic Old Montgomery Ohio along Cooper Road in one of the National Register saltbox houses (built in the 1800s). At Gilded Indigo, we offer hand-selected antiques and vintage fine jewelry, furniture, accessories, accent pieces, decor and art work gallery on our 2nd floor. We also offer interesting food, kitchen, and bar/entertainment products. We are striving to create a welcoming atmosphere for spouses to browse while enjoying the charm of the historic Montgomery area. The area of the city is a new DORA district and the community offers many outdoor events which drives customers to the local businesses.

I’m really happy that we are able to offer very interesting items that you may not be able to find at big box retailers. We don’t have much bulk / repeated product – I love that I can bring the past back to life! Even though our store is still in the process of opening, I love when family/friends come in and are already complimenting the store and the products and can’t wait for the grand opening.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The COVID lockdowns really gave us pause to evaluate our life and where we wanted to go until we were fully ready to retire. I worked as a cosmetologist and my husband worked in corporate human resources. Neither of us had any experience operating a small business on our own, and we realized we had to quickly adjust our inventory vision. Even though we offered re-imagined antique furnishings – neither of us are carpenters etc so we understood we had to make some adjustments on what we were going to offer in the store. We had to expand the inventory offerings to be more in line with our strengths and skillsets.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My business partner is my husband, and he has been fired and rehire several times just within the first few months. All kidding aside, we have both brought strengths to the business. I am the creative genius behind the products and vision and my husband has been instrumental in the other nuances of the back-end of the business. It’s interesting in that even though we won’t always agree, we share the vision and are building this together. We have invested in Gilded Indigo, and are 100% committed to success.

A word of advice though – my husband and I have been married for 25 years, and so of course we know each other very well. We don’t always agree, but we know how to communicate, compromise and listen.

Contact Info:

• Other: Not quite ready just yet, our store will be opening in the next few weeks and the website could use some more tweaks before we are ready to share!