Soon into my career I knew I wanted to own my own salon, when I became an independent chair renter It quickly became all I could think about. Years of vision boards, saving all sorts of ideas and designs on my phone, I was ready for the day that I finally took the leap. I was getting busy and my schedule quite full, I loved my clients and doing nails full time but I have always known that my true passion was to teach and I needed a space where I could do that on a more regular basis. I gave myself a 2 year goal, in 2017 I would do it! I began looking for spaces quite quickly, there was lots of new construction in my city and if I wanted in a new development I need to commit well before completion. I spent countless hours looking for the perfect space and as frustrating as it was every place I saw was not right. I had rented at a salon a few years prior and the layout was exactly what I needed for my plans of running a salon while having space to teach. Nothing I was seeing was anything like that and I was starting to get worried.
It was the end of 2016 I informed my current salon owners of my intentions and this is when the stars began to align, they let me know that their lease would be up in the spring and were considering taking their business in a new direction, that they would fully support me and come with me to my salon as chair renters. This lit the fire, with the salon closing I knew I could open with the guarantee of chair renters. It was now crunch time! I had to find a space and have it ready for opening by April 1st. Over Christmas and the early new year I continued my search, and then it happened, not only did I find the perfect space, it was a salon that I had rented at years ago and was exactly the space imagined having, it had suddenly become available and I jumped on it immediately. I could not have been more excited!
Front half of the salon before the renovation -Realtor photos
Now the work was to begin, the salon needed a major makeover. I had 6 weeks to opening, lots of improvements needed to be done, product to be purchased and my loan was not approved. Unfortunately I had a small budget and planned to do all the work myself, the bank needed to see proof that I was hiring contractors in order to approve me for financing the salon renovation. So I decided that I had no other choice than to finance the entire project myself with no help from the bank.
Pretty much everyday was spent working until the late hours of the night, painting, building and preparing for opening day. Thankfully with the help of my husband who would come after work to help and my brother who handled all the plumbing I was able to get it done!
Photos of the finished salon renovation
In this portion of my blog I want to share my business ideas, struggles and tips that hopefully help out or inspire other business owners and independent nail techs who are chasing those big dreams and may be working through the same issues I have experienced.
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