LANDRUM – When Cindy McKenzie and her husband John moved to Landrum to find some property, McKenzie had the idea of opening her own store to sell vintage furniture and antiques.

The store, known as Pee Ridge Vintiques, is located at 142 N. Trade Ave., and sells furniture painted with chalk paint, which McKenzie said does not require the “prep work” of regular painting such as priming and stripping old paint.

“My husband lost his job at Lowe’s when they moved facilities to Mexico and so we decided that when he started looking we were going to look at the Upstate,” McKenzie said. “He took a job in Spartanburg and we wanted to move closer this way and we’ve always loved the mountains. We found Landrum and fell in love, bought some property here and we’re getting ready to build our home.”

McKenzie said her parents live in North Carolina on the Virginia border. The area where her parents live, unofficially known as Pee Ridge, inspired the name for her store. She did not know of Pea Ridge in the Polk County area when she came over from Eden, N.C. near Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

“I’ve always had a love for furniture and basically things that have lost their luster,” McKenzie explained. “I kind of started doing this for friends and family,  back in North Carolina and my dad loves to go out and look for pieces of furniture. He’s been heavily involved on that side of things and we just give them new life.”

People can bring in furniture they want painted as well, but McKenzie said the shop only does minor repairs to furniture and not full restorations. Additionally, McKenzie said she does not paint antiques because they “have value on their own.”

“We can customize colors and meet their décor needs or whatever,” McKenzie explained. “But, usually it’s not the antique pieces but the vintage pieces that you typically find that someone wants to do something new with.”

All of the pieces in her store are painted with chalk paint with what McKenzie said is two to three coats of paint depending on the type of material the furniture is made out of in addition to two to three coats of wax to seal the paint.

“You don’t have a lot of the stripping and sanding and prep work unless you are going to finish a tabletop or something that is going to be stained,” McKenzie said. “There’s also a special type of wax that you can use with chalk paint to seal it. There’s no prep work, and typically if you were going to use a sander or latex type paints, the wood would have to be able to absorb that paint and have the paint stick to it. You could chalk paint anything from floors to fabric to cabinets, you name it, it’s a pretty universal product.”

Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The shop is closed on Mondays and Wednesdays, but is also open on Sundays from 12 to 6 p.m. Although McKenzie had a soft opening on October 15, she said she hopes to do a grand opening on October 29 to coincide with Landrum’s Halloween Stroll.

“It’s amazing that when I am painting furniture, it’s the most calming thing I think that I have ever done,” McKenzie said. “This is a first time experience as I have never opened a storefront before, but I just wanted to take the plunge. We tend to find a lot of pieces at the local Habitat store and the Hospice Thrift Barn and give them love and new life. I feel that it is a great way to give back to the community while offering a look for items that others may never see.”

McKenzie is also available to come meet clients to take a look at their furniture and discuss their needs. She can be reached by phone at 864-457-1311.