I'm opening a gift shop in Edinburgh in the same unit where my grandmother ran an antiques shop for 25 years
An Edinburgh woman is following in her family’s footsteps as she prepares to open a gift shop in the same building where her grandmother ran a business for more than 25 years.
Mairidh Nic Cormaic is set to open Joy’s gift shop, at 39 Candlemaker Row, with her friend and ex-colleague Lowrie Dickson on Friday, August 1.
The pair, both 25, have collated independent artists' work from around the UK and plan to sell handmade fleeces, earrings, stickers, prints, wool, and many other handmade gems at their new shop.
The store is named after Mairidh’s gran Joy, who ran Joy’s Antiques in the space from 1983 until 2009.
Mairidh said: “I don't know their official reasoning [for closing] but it kind of slowed down towards the end, they were only open one day a week.”
The shop was originally two stories, but it later became a lower ground shop with a flat above it - where Mairidh now lives.
The shop has been occupied by various businesses since 2009 but when Mairidh learned that the unit was to become available, she jumped at the chance to make it her own.
She said: “I found out I was going to be able to get this shop as the tenant that was in it before was leaving. I was talking about it to Lowrie and she asked if I needed someone to work with me.
“It was at the end of May that we went full steam ahead with it. The start of July is when we really started painting and getting all the stock.”
The women were surprised to learn that Mairidh wasn't the only one with a connection to the space as Lowrie learnt her grandparents had been regulars at Joy’s Antiques.
Lowrie said: “I said to my grandma that I was thinking about opening a shop with my friend on Candlemaker Row and she said ‘your papa used to buy me stuff from an antique shop down Candlemaker Row’ and I said it’ll be the same one.
“She took me around her flat and showed me all the stuff he bought her. It's so cute, we had no idea.”
Instead of antiques, anyone shopping at Joy’s after it opens this week will be able to get their hands on unique items made by Mairidh and Lowrie, or by independent artists.
Mairidh said: “A lot of them haven't sold in shops before, so it's really nice that we’re giving them that kind of retail space.
“We’re both crafty people, Lowrie does all the crochet earrings and I do the fleeces and some of the magnets. It’s nice that we are also able to do things ourselves in the shop and mould it into our dream. There are so many lovely little indie shops in Edinburgh, we wanted to make our own.”
Lowrie said they asked family and friends if they had any handmade stock for them and were excited that much of the stock could come from people they knew as well as artists they have found at markets. She said: “My brother is a musician and his bass player when he plays gigs makes wax melts on the side. He's just started making wax melts for us.”
Decorated in colourful pastels and bright artwork, the shop looks very different from the days of Joy’s Antiques but they have kept the shop's history intertwined with the new features. A timeline on a ceiling beam shows the shop as it was when Joy bought it up to now.
Mairidh and Lowrie are currently gearing up for their first opening day onAugust 1 at 11am and plan to recreate many of the pictures from Joy’s antiques after they open.