How Mar-C’s Was Born

How Mar-C’s Was Born

 

My grandmother lived with us when I was growing up and she was a wonderful seamstress.  I never had sewing lessons, but learned just by watching her sew.  When I married my now hubby in 1967, we started our sewing business from our house.  It started with alterations, dressmaking and men’s suits then expanded to designing and sewing prom and bridal gowns.  Back in the early 1970’s our family doctor (who still made house calls) was having a convention in his home with other doctors. His wife called all upset because their cats had clawed the sofa and she wanted us to make a slipcover for it.  We had never ventured into slipcovers but I always said if we don’t try, we won’t know if it can be done. So fabric and pins in hand, we went to their house and pin fitted the fabric to the sofa.  It worked and turned out beautiful and the doctors convention was a success!

 

A master bedroom suite we designed and fabricated the treatments for.

 

 From there things just kept expanding from draperies, top treatments, bedding and pillows, lots of pillows. Looking back almost 50 years, the styles have somewhat changed while some styles and fabric colors that were “trendy” back then, are back now!   With sewing so many different styles, dresses, men’s suits, gowns and window treatments, we decided to focus on the aspect of sewing that was most interesting to us, interior decorating.

 

 We even made a coat for the elephant from the spread and bed skirt fabric!

 

We continued to design and fabricate treatments in our basement workroom in upstate New York until 1994 when we relocated to South Carolina to help care for my mom who had Alzheimer’s disease.  We flew down one weekend, located a shop that would work and over the next few months we transitioned from sewing in the home to a 1000 sq. ft. store front.  We were lucky, people stopped in even before we officially opened so we had work from the beginning.  All of our work in New York was word of mouth and referrals but now we were in a new place and didn’t know anyone or anything about the competition.  We continued the way we always did,  be on time for appointments, do quality work and have a friendly disposition.   In 2000, we expanded our shop to 2000 sq. ft. to make more room for the fabrics, trim and drapery hardware without squeezing the workroom.

 

Things were going great, we had so much work, still word of mouth and referrals, until 2009 when I had a mini stroke that affected my throat and vocal cords.  We learned shortly after, during a flooding rain, the back wall of the workroom side was full of mold and that’s what triggered my stroke.  The landlord didn’t do anything about it so within a few weeks we were in our new location, only two blocks away.  This store is about the same size but the layout is a bit different.

 

My hubby cuts the hardware to length, builds cornices and sews draperies  while I create the patterns and meet with the clients and sew between doing that.   We are very informal, clients become friends and repeat clients, then refer their friends to us.  Long time clients stop in just to say hi and hang out in the workroom while we are making our creations.

 

This was my grandson’s favorite fleece jacket he lived in until he was about four.  When it didn’t fit him anymore, I printed a picture of his face on fabric sheets for the printer and made the jacket into a Zachary pillow.

 

This round pillow is so fun to make and very elegant.

I love our “job” but doing something you love doesn’t seem like work.   My hubby will be 70 years old in July and I’ll be 67 years old in March and people ask when we are going to retire.  We haven’t got that far yet, maybe someday we’ll slow down or cut back but we will have to finish up the projects we are working on but since they keep coming, we don’t see an end in sight.

 

 

This client had umbrella pictures in her guest bath so we picked fabrics to match her towels and made an umbrella cornice over her tub.  It made quite a hit.

Every creation is different as is the fabric and trim and we love being creative and making homes beautiful.   Our treatments go in homes, condos, businesses and we even ship to different states and we’ve even fabricated treatments for condos in St. Thomas and the Bahamas.

 

Color blocking is done by stitching different colored fabrics horizontally to give a beautiful look.  This is a beach home with soft blues, beige and cream silk.

 

I loved creating this soft, relaxing look in a spa/massage room.  The sheer fabric billowed softly along the lines of the slanted ceiling.

 

Anyone know French?  These were dining room chair seat cushions we recovered, sure would like to know what it says!

We are a one stop shop and do it all – design, measure, fabricate and install. We never turn anything down if we haven’t made a similar product because if we don’t try, we will never know if we can accomplish the treatment.  Our motto is ” If you want to explore deeper oceans, you first have to leave sight of the shore.”

 

A client came in the other day and said, “Thank you for making my house a beautiful home.”  I love compliments like this.

The name of our store has a meaning, Mar-C’s  is for the first letter of my name (Martha) and hubby’s name (Rich) with the “C” being our children. (Christine & Cynthia)

Mar-C’s Interior Decorating