We have another "Where Are They Now" post for you. Blogger Melodie Hand has signed a lease to move Tickled Pink to a bigger location (conveniently across the street), plus will be adding many services beyond nails. -- NAILS Eds.
We have outgrown the location we are currently in, and the parking situation has only gotten worse. While the location served its purpose to help us get established in the community, we're ready to move on. We get calls weekly for skin care, hair, and massage, and these are not services we are set up to offer in this location.
About three months ago I set out to find a new location for us and found the perfect spot. It is a freestanding building that used to be a doctor's office. It is just across the street from where we are now and up the road about one block. It's more visible than our current location. It has its own private parking areas. And, since it was previously a doctor's office, there is plumbing in all the rooms. Not only was the plumbing already in place, but the cabinets, sinks, and countertops are still in usable condition. Each exam room will become private booth rental rooms.
We do have some renovating to do. We are painting walls, cutting out an opening in one wall to open up the hairstyling room and the front nail/waiting room, replacing flooring in two rooms, and replacing a cabinet and countertop with a hair station. We were able to negotiate the monthly lease cost down substantially to help offset the renovations. (The building was vacant for about a year so it needed a little work.)
Our target opening date in the new location is June 15. The new salon will still be called Tickled Pink Salon, but we are going with a beach theme for our decor. We wanted something fun and a more gender-neutral. And the website will have a complete makeover reflecting the new look, style, and providers.
Each of our booth renters will have their own business within Tickled Pink with their own business names so that each of us are truly self-employed. The service providers we have coming in have been carefully selected. Cheri Bicknell of Studio C is the hair stylist. She and I worked in the same studio type salon prior to the opening of Tickled Pink originally. So I knew that we could work really well together right from the start. Sarah Whittier of Portable Peace Massage is the massage therapist that will be coming into the salon. She was referred to us through Cheri. There will also be a Nutrition Club located inside the building. We are still looking for an esthetician to join us. And that will leave us with ONE nail tech booth to rent and one additional room for booth renting to the right operator. With this range of service providers we will most definitely be able to provide whole body care and pampering to our clients.
A few changes we will be making to the nail department: The nail/manicure bar will be located in the front room while pedicures will be provided in a private room. We are completely changing out the style of chairs we are using and going with a pedicure platform (we actually got the idea for the design from a NAILS blogger Candice, with some tweaking to fit our needs. The pedicure room will give our clients the look and feel of being on a beach retreat.
—Melodie, Tickled Pink Salon & Nail Spa, Clayton, N.C.