New store touts ‘a little bit of everything,’ affordable prices and a clean setting

Tim Harty, The Business Times

As a motorcycle-riding married couple from Montana, Ramani Arnett and Blake Fransen saw the country from coast to coast. And they collected a lot of antiques and vintage items along the way.

Realizing they had too much stuff to simply sell items at antique booths, and knowing they wanted to retire to a place with a more temperate climate, they’re now in Grand Junction, where they started their new store: Rustic Rose.

The retail shop at 419 Main St. in downtown Grand Junction is, in Arnett’s simplest summarization, a “little-bit-of-everything store.” Old and new. Items for people of any age. Stuff for men. Stuff for women.

“I would say basically we have at least a little something for everyone … and from every age,” Arnett said. “It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, you’ll find you can find something. Not that you need it, but you can find it.”

If you fancy Western vintage and antiques or like unique new works from makers, there’s a lot to peruse.

Want a bottle painted by 73-year-old Miss Vicki from Delta? Rustic Rose carries them.

Did that patchwork denim jacket, made from many pieces of various old blue jeans by Dee Wang Studios in New York, catch your eye?

Perhaps one of the custom-built pieces of rustic, solid-wood furniture from Fernando, who lives in Arizona and sells his works wholesale there, New Mexico and Texas – and now at Rustic Rose in Colorado – would blend perfectly in your dining room. Plus, Fernando does blown glass that is used in lamps and chandeliers.

Then, there’s a second Vicky, who does all of the mosaic works in the store.

And Rustic Rose carries items from a couple more artistic women, one who makes t-shirts and one who who provides “oddity stuff for the goth kind of kids.”

Also in the mix are items from Fransen, a woodworker and furniture maker himself. Many of the lamps in the store are his handiwork, plus some of the wild-game mounts.

So, variety abounds, which Arnett and Fransen highlight as the appeal of Rustic Rose.

“People look in the window and see furniture, and they see my mounts, and then they come in here and they all of a sudden see all this kind of other stuff we sell,” Fransen said.

That serves as a reminder that there’s more than meets the eye for the person peering through the front window. For the full effect, customers need to step inside and look around. Do that, and Arnett believes most people will find something they like.

Maybe it’s the section with clothes and toys dedicated to kids.

Maybe it’s the table with wood-carved horses.

Maybe it’s the table and nook where goth items are displayed.

Maybe it’s the 1935 Streamline Sky King tricycle perched atop a large bookshelf in the center of the store.

Or, if you need a bigger bike, there’s a 2007 Harley-Davidson Heritage with Screamin’ Eagle after-market parts near the front of the store.

“My biggest focus,” Arnett said, “was I wanted to make sure that we had a little bit of a variety and a little bit of something for everyone. Everybody could buy something.”

They try to help the customers as well with practical presentation, which is why the store was necessary instead of booths at shows.

“When you go into an antique store,” Arnett said, “what we’ve noticed is it’s a lot harder to say, ‘Oh, what am I going to do with that piece when I get it?’ Or, ‘How would I display that in my house?’ … One of our main things was to take those items and display it (in the store), so you could see how it could be displayed possibly in your house.

“That’s why we have a lot of the things here displayed different ways, so then you can kind of see, ‘Oh yeah, that would be cool on a shelf that I have in my house.’ Or, ‘This would be cool if I put it in my little man cave this way.’ You know, different items like that, so we’ve really focused on putting the pieces in a decor setting.”

They also go to great lengths to make sure everything is in a clean setting.

“The other thing that we’re really big on and pride ourselves on is cleanliness,” Arnett said. “We really want to make sure that it’s clean. We went into a lot of stores in the past, thrift stores or antique stores, and it’s hard because the stuff is kind of dirty, you know?

“And so it’s real important for us to be clean and make sure that everything is presented well, because I hate that when you walk in and you’re like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to stay in here.’”

It appears they achieved their cleanliness goal, as Arnett added, “We’ve had a lot of good feedback in just the couple days we’ve been open. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s almost like walking into a museum.’ So the nice thing is they stay in here for quite a while walking through.”

Arnett and Fransen think customers who stay for a while and find something they want will find another thing they’ll like: affordable pricing.

“My big thing is that I want to make sure it’s affordable for everybody,” Arnett said. “We had a younger kid come in the other day, and he bought one of the vintage Levi’s jean jackets. It was like 35 bucks, and he’s like, ‘These are usually like 80 bucks. What’s going on?’ And I said, ‘Well, the big thing is if we find it and we can find it at a good deal, we’re only going to put like a 25 percent markup on it and make it so where everybody else can afford it.’”

The affordability factor resonates with Arnett, as she said for a long time she was a single mom with three kids.

“It’s real important that everybody can afford something,” she said. “I mean, we have high-end stuff and some really expensive stuff, too. But I like the fact that some things, even our vintage things, people could afford and still have really nice things.”

The store where they’d want to shop

Rustic Rose owners Ramani Arnett and Blake Fransen had a guiding principle in designing the interior of their new store, which they opened Oct. 1 at 419 Main St. in downtown Grand Junction: Would they want to shop there?

Their answer: “Yes!”

“I think it’s a store that we’ve always kind of wanted to find ourselves and never have, so it’s something that we just kind of created,” Arnett said. 

Fransen added, “We get a ton of feedback about just how much everybody enjoys coming in and just walking around and getting to see a lot of stuff.”

Fransen said that’s what he and Arnett like to do, too. When they were living in Montana or traveling around the United States, they sought out stores that sell vintage, antique and unique items.

They found a place in South Carolina, where Fransen said, “You can just spend hours walking around, looking at cool stuff, and that’s the stuff we enjoyed. And we just thought, ‘You know, let’s do a store that we would want, and that’s what we kind of came up with.’”

Arnett added, “The only thing I’m really missing is, like, a drinking fountain with a hose as the spigot. You know what I mean? It would be fun.”

Quite the helping hand

Arnett said she and Fransen leased their store’s space June 15 and got right to work on the renovation to make the space look more rustic, which went smoothly. It helped that Fransen was a general contractor for 35 years.

“We’ve done brand new flooring, the walls, exposed ceiling, exposed all the natural brick in here,” Arnett said.

They also enlisted some help in the form of a high school kid, Connor Steele, who was looking for some summer work. Steele provided muscle for hauling items in and out of the building and moving things around.

“Great kid, best kid ever,” Arnett said. “He’s like 17 with the best work ethic.”

Warm welcome to Grand Junction

Arnett and Fransen talked about getting a lot of positive feedback since opening the store, which aligns with the reception they’ve gotten in general since moving to Grand Junction.

“The people in Grand Junction are so nice,” Arnett said. “The community is so nice. People that come in, they’re polite and they’re nice and they’re inviting. And I would say out of all the places we’ve traveled throughout the entire U.S., Grand Junction has some of the nicest, open people … the most inviting people, I guess you would say.”

Fransen added, “This is the nicest place we’ve ever lived, absolutely.”