Susan Dickenson

While vacationing: Ivan Cutler at Pottery World

Yesterday, my friend and fellow Greensboron Ivan Saul Cutler, known to many as an industry marketing specialist, writer and chief blogger at InsideFurniture.com, made my day by doing something I wish my friends would do more often – While vacationing, he visited a great home accents store near Sacramento and thought enough of it to drop me an email and a few photos:

Ivan's email: Susan, I thought of you while shopping in the home accents cornucopia of Pottery World Home Décor in Rocklin, California, where traditional home accents cascade from every corner.

Ivan had gone shopping with his wife Wendy and her mom, whom they were visiting, in search of “an interior base container for an indoor tree.” Yesterday, we chatted about it on the phone. Ivan described the décor as “Iberian traditional” a blend of Mediterranean, Mexican and California mission styles presented in a beautiful hacienda. He said it was a “magnificent store” with a nice high-end mix of furniture, home accents and garden décor, but dominated primarily by home accents.

Ivan: It was midweek, and we spent a considerable amount of time there. It’s clearly Californian, the furniture has a heavier crafted look, almost gothic… there were a lot of fountains... but not one piece of contemporary anywhere. There’s also an area dedicated to custom florals, another for jewelry… Overall, an eclectic mix of indoor/outdoor populated with a variety of urns, pottery, garden décor, statuary. I think it may have started as a pottery store. But as soon as I saw the place, I thought, someone needs to know about this.

Me: I’m so glad you thought of me – I checked out their Web site right after I got your message... you described it perfectly. What else did you do while you were out in California?

Ivan: Well, I grew up in Southern California, and my brother lives out there, so we visited him… made the beautiful coastal drive up Highway 1 to Monterey… and dropped by San Francisco’s de Young Museum to make a courtesy condolence call on King Tut.

Me: Very nice. I love that drive through Big Sur. Well, I really appreciate you sharing Pottery World with me… It’s fun to hear about retail discoveries like this.

Ivan: You know, you might even think about… whenever your readers travel to other parts of the globe,  you could print photos of people holding up a copy of Home Accents Today… standing on top of a mountain, in front of the Great Wall of China…

Me: The competition’s already done that, Ivan.

Ivan: Oh. Well, you could still invite your readers to submit photos of great stores they find while vacationing… might work with Furniture/Today as well.

Me: GREAT idea, Ivan. I’m going to invite all of our readers to do just that when I write about your discovery on my blog… 

email your great retail finds and photos to susan.dickenson@reedbusiness.com

Posted by Susan Dickenson on August 13, 2009 | Comments (0)