Estate of Mind, 14505 Lima Road, features a variety of high-quality, used furniture, collectibles, handmade crafts and repurposed items.
“We have beautiful pieces at amazing prices,” said Pam Leonard, owner and president.
“We try to make a little bit of profit but still offer really nice stuff to people so they can afford it,” she said.
Currently, the store has a Drexel table and six chairs for $500, she said.
Estate of Mind is located in the Lima-Plank Mercantile Mall. The mall, also known as the Huntertown Mall, is at Lima Road and Indiana 3.
“Items that we have are above thrift-store quality. They are like new,” said Leonard.
Many items also carry a well-known brand name.
“We are very picky about what we buy from other people. We buy and sell a lot of Pier 1 furniture. Broyhill is a good name that we sell a lot of. Additionally, Thomasville furniture is also available at times,” she said.
Increased business and additional inventory prompted a need for more space. The original showroom has now spilled over into an adjacent space, creating two rooms. The expansion is reminiscent of walking through someone’s home and looking at their cherished treasures.
Besides pre-owned items, various artists and crafters display new handmade wares. Current artisans feature a mix of jewelry, pottery and purses.
Estate of Mind opened in August 2011 and also offers repurposed items.
For example, people will take old barn wood and use it to make bookcases or coat trees or coat racks, said Leonard.
“The store is different every time people shop it,” said Leonard.
Advertising for the store is done by using a combination of traditional classified ads and a virtual presence.
The store advertises on Facebook, Craigslist, the classified section of the newspaper under garage sales and our website: www.estateofmindgroup.com, she said.
“We update our Facebook page more frequently than we do our website, said Leonard.
Before opening her shop, Leonard spent four years in a somewhat related venture helping people liquidate the contents of a home when the need arose. Today she continues this venture by coordinating, organizing and executing estate sales.
“There was a need for the service in the Fort Wayne community and people were really not offering estate sales. We saw most family members did not live in the same city as their loved ones. So they would have to commute back and forth to empty out mom or dad’s house. When we started doing estate sales, nobody else was doing it,” she said.
Leonard has a very systematic approach to liquidating the contents of a home and can empty house in less than a week.
“When we come in we organize, we discard and we price everything. We start on a Monday, and we finish on a Saturday,” she said.
The first part of the week is devoted to pricing, discarding and organizing. We tag every item. By Thursday, prospective buyers are looking over items at an in-house estate sale, she said.
Finally, after the sale, the house is swept and the counters are wiped down so the house is virtually ready for someone to move into or for a real-estate agent to put it on the market. That takes us six days, said Leonard.
Finding the dates for the next Estate of Mind in-home estate sale is as easy as checking the classified section under garage sales, she said.
Finally, upcoming plans for Leonard call for a change of pace.
“In five years, I see myself getting ready for retirement and selling Estate of Mind for a nice profit,” she said.
