Best Shot Monday: Friends and Strangers Project, Lajana

 

Confession: I am an antique store junkie. Have I told you that? Growing up, I spent a good chunk of time with my Nana every summer. Every weekend, we'd spend all day Saturday going to the flea market just south of 103rd St. on Blanding Blvd. and then to Skaff's Produce and Antiques. The flea market is still there, though it's really full of junk now. It had much cooler stuff back then, or maybe it was just cooler to me because I was a kid. Skaff's is no longer there. It was a bit south of the flea market, just a bit north of I-295, on the left if you were heading north. There was a super tall sign with a cow on the top. The cow stayed long after Skaff's closed, but I think it's finally been torn down now. So my love for the hunt started early. My mother also loved poking around antique stores. I did that with her quite a bit, and I have quite a few of my mother's finds in my home today. And now, I'm indoctrinating my girls with the bug.  Olivia likes to hunt for small porcelain animals. Her biggest find was a collection of 11 tiny glass frogs for $8 at the Big Peach Antique Mall about an hour south of Atlanta. It was there that I also found our cow butter dish, aptly named Buttercup, and Sarah found a five-piece furniture set for her dolls, her favorite thing to search for.  

My love for these little shops led me last Friday to Park Street Antiques, just five minutes from work, and to the next entry in my Friends and Strangers project.  Meet Lajana, who just so happens to be the owner of Park Street Antiques. It was serendipity that I met Lajana because, though she owns the shop, she only works on Friday!  The rest of the week, she has other help minding the store.  She's been there for 13 years!  I have no idea how I managed to pass by this little gem for 13 years without stopping in.  I used to love to stop in to Bungalow Artworks, which I believe used to be right next door, so the love of all the art must have distracted me.

Lajana told me she has "a real job" as a property manager, managing 140 properties, and her antiques store is her "play job."  She's also built four houses and is looking forward to building her fifth, and last, on a lake down in Hawthorne, where she plans to retire. She's thinking about starting a blog to document building her last house. That would be great fun to follow.  I poked around Lajana's shop quite a while and fell in love with what is always my greatest weakness: dishes and glasses. Aren't these lovely (below)?  Luckily for my husband, I managed to pass them up and made it out the door with nothing more than some vintage valentines from the 50's.  Stop in to see Lajana at Park Street Antiques, 2766 Park St, Jacksonville.  Take a peek at more of my Friends and Stranger project here!