If some of you don’t know, the City of Alexandria recently raised the parking meter from $1/hour to $1.75/hour. Ouch!

As a business owner that hurts. Many of us have seen a decrease in our business because of the raise in parking. Now, we understand that the City needs to make revenue so it can provide much needed services, but it’s unfortunate that there was not a solution in place to make it easy for folks to park on the streets in Old Town. Business leaders and the City are working on a new plan that we hope will be implemented sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, we want to offer a few solutions to the parking situation…

1. Please DO NOT hesitate to ask a business owner – even one with whom you do not plan to shop – for making change. We all make sure that we have a ton of quarters in our registers just for this reason. This is a common practice in Old Town. All the businesses are used to this request and are more than happy to oblige.

2. There are many parking garages in Old Town. If you are planning a day of shopping and dining, we suggest you park in one of the many garages. My favorite one is on South Pitt Street across from Restaurant Eve. On the weekends this one caps at $2 for the day (or at least it did the last time I needed to park there). Click here to get a map of all the parking garages in Old Town. This is the easiest way to enjoy the most time in Old Town without having to move your car or feed a meter.

3. On all of the residential streets, usually only a couple of blocks off of King Street, there is free two hour (and sometimes three hour) parking. Free on-street parking is indicated by green-on-white signs on many blocks. It is generally limited to two hours, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. Sunday until 2 a.m. Monday.  Those spots are there for everyone, but please remember to move your car after two hours to make room for residents as well.

4. Finally, there are always the Green alternatives to driving and parking in Old Town: biking, walking and taking the Metro. The City has many bikeways that will get you to and around Old Town. And, the trolley is a great solution for quickly and easily getting from the Metro to virtually any corner in town. Click here for information on where to ride and park your bike in the City and here for the trolley schedule and route.

However you choose to park or travel to and around Old Town we hope you will continue to support your local businesses. Don’t forget the top ten reasons for shopping local particularly the one about how sales taxes from your purchases help to pay for City services. Perhaps if we keep shopping locally and increasing the tax revenue, then the City won’t have to raise revenue through parking meters again any time soon. Just a thought…

Alexandria is hosting it’s very first Sidewalk Sale on Saturday, August 14th.  How exciting!

This is exciting for many reasons, first being that the City of Alexandria has worked in conjunction with the business community to make this possible.  Thank you to the City for seeing how important this collective effort is to Alexandria and it’s businesses.  Thank you to the business leaders for lobbying for and leading this effort.  As a participating business I’m tremendously grateful.

The second exciting reason is sales, sales, sales!  Be it inside or on the actual sidewalks of Old Town there will be deals galore.  Your favorite boutiques all over Old Town will be offering deep discounts on summer and everyday merchandise. 

At Red Barn Mercantile we will be offering an additional 20% off all sale merchandise!  That means the recycled Boylan Glasses that you have been coveting went from $10.25 to $7.67 to $6.15.  That’s almost half off!  And, that’s not all.  There are many other great deals to be had like great covelets from Pamela Kline, wonderful globes that are great for back to school, picture frames for school pictures, blocks for kids of all ages, and the list goes on.

I do have to admit that we are big wimps.  We will not be on the actual sidewalk, but rather in the air conditioned comfort of our store.  I hope you will stop by, enjoy the cool air, grab a bottle of water and get a good deal. Remember, be there early or be sorry later…

See you this weekend!

If you’ve dived very deep into RedBarnMercantile.com over the past few days you may have noticed that things aren’t working quite right.

We are in the process of making some security upgrades to our e-commerce system that we hope will lead to future improvements. However, these upgrades are taking much longer than we anticipated.

If you see something online you would like to purchase, please call our store at 703-838-0355 during normal opperating hours (Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday noon to 5 p.m.) and one of our friendly staff members would be happy to take your order.

We hope to resolve these technical issues soon and will keep you up to date on our progress.

Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE, 8/20: Just a quick note to let you know tech support is still working on this issue. Shoppers can now order from our department pages — Furniture, Home Decor, etc. — but links to pages for more information on each product are still broken. You can reach the more information pages by entering a “store/” between the .com/ and the page filename, which ends in .html. For example, the link to more information for our Oops! Eraser should be: http://www.redbarnmercantile.com/store/eraser_oops.html

Oops! Of course we have nearly 500 products and these URLs are all written automatically. So making this kind of change takes a little time.

Our shopping cart remains 100% secure so your information is safe with us. But if you have any questions or would prefer to place your order over the phone, please call the number above.

We hope to be back up and running 100% soon and thank you for your patience. 

UPDATE, 8/31: We are still having problems getting our shopping cart to see our correct SSL certificate. This may cause your browser to warn you about security certificate errors. Our Web host’s tech support team is continuing to work on this problem and we hope to have this matter resolved soon.

What does back-to-school mean to you?  For me it means sending my youngest to Kindergarten and for Kathy, one of our fab staffers, it means sending her middle son off to his freshman year at JMU.   What a range!  What a change!

For us it’s all about backpacks and lunch boxes and for Kathy it’s about the mini-fridge and bath caddies for the communal showers.  The list seems insurmountable, where does one begin?

We started last week with our new backpacks and lunch boxes and next week we will work on the new shoes and clothes (particularly new jeans for my oldest as every pair he owns has a hole in the left knee!).  After that we will do the school supplies for them and the school supplies for me.  For the kids we will be stocking up on picutre and chapter books, alphabet flashcards and an apple for the teacher. 

And for me, I’ll be raiding my store for the Russell & Hazel binders and accoutrements (currently, on sale 20% off only in our store during the month of August!) so that I can keep all the kids’s school and after-school schedules, lunch menus and contact lists straight – to keep me straight and from having that inevitable embarrassing moment of having to run to school and bring the field trip permission slip that I forgot to put in the backpack.

For Kathy that will mean a nice new Dash & Albert rug for the cold linoleum dorm room floors, a warm Utility Canvas coverlet (available in the store only, at the moment) and inexpensive but durable Fishs Eddy dishes for those nights of Ramen noodles after the cafeteria closes.

Such big changes that are unbelieveably exciting!  I feel so fortunate to be a spectator as Kathy sends Tim off to college.  They are a great example of how all the hard work of high school, sports and extracurricular activities have paid off. 

To not feel so ridiculously behind, I better get Will back in soccer and Kate signed up for Girl Scouts.  Harvard here we come!

Hello all!

I hope you will allow me a little begging, pleading and blatant self-promotion.  It’s that time of year when the Washington Post’s Express paper seeks nominations for the Best of Washington 2010.  We were thrilled to nominated last year (it really is an honor to be nominated, don’t be jaded by the Hollywood establishment) and even more thrilled to come in second place behind the venerable HomeRule.

We would be sooooo grateful if you would help to get us nominate again this year.  It’s easy to do!  To make nominations just click here.  We are in the Best Local Home Store.  And, don’t forget about all your other faves – particularly those in the Old Town Boutique District! 

Many many many thanks!

The next time you visit Red Barn Mercantile, you might see spots. Don’t worry, those red and green dots are your signal to save! We’ve marked down a number of items throughout our store to make room for our upcoming fall lines. You’ll receive savings from 25 to 50 percent off. But don’t wait long. These items are marked for clearance and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

Everyone who knows me will tell you that I’m an unorganized mess.  It’s true.  For the most part I get by with a lot of luck.  With my organization skills there really is no reason I should be running a business. 

Not sure if you’re like me, but I’m one of those people where out of sight means out of mind.  That’s why I don’t put anything away.  My house and my office are a ridiculous mess of clutter.  If it’s important it has to be out because if it gets put away it will never get used or addressed.  Although, some would argue that’s the point.  If you don’t use it, then you don’t need it.  And if you don’t do it right away then it wasn’t important to begin with.  I suppose they’re right.

On June 24th there was a great article in the Washington Post by Jura Koncius on how to organize your home.  They tackled your hall closet, photographs, junk drawer and my favorite, kid papers.  I took care of the junk drawer last year.  Finally got rid of everything that I didn’t use – which was most of the drawer.  The hall closet will get addressed come winter time when I’m pulling out coats to see what still fits and what can be donated to charity.  As for photographs, those are all still on the camera safe and sound.  For now, they are fine.  I will get to them when I can find the time – which may be never. 

Finally, the kid papers.  I have virtually all of my children’s paintings and drawings since they were 2.  What do I do with them?  Do I ask them to choose their favorites?  Do I just pick a few?  If anyone has any helpful hints, I’m all ears!

I’d like to say that it’s going to be my summer mission to get organized, that while the kids are at camp I will clean out every room and file away all the detritus that is my life.  But, that’s not going to happen, at least not on a grand scale.  Instead, I’m going to take things one step at a time.  I’m going to start by labeling my files and transferring them from the old file cabinet to the new pretty vintage oak one that I added to my office three months ago.  I’m going to file away all my recipes in this wonderful Russell & Hazel recipe binder that we have at the store.  I’m going to file all those papers on my desk and come up with a system to keep them from piling up again.  I’m going to take baby steps.

As with every bad habit it takes 30 days of consistently doing the good habit to get rid of the bad.  I’m going to pick one thing, one really bad habit, and spend 30 days trying to reverse it.  Not sure what it will be but am taking suggestions for it too.  I’ll keep you posted.  Wish me luck!

Before you think I’m crazy, I meant to spell it that way.  : )

As an independent business owner, I’d like to take this Independence Day to thank you for all that you do to support businesses like ours.  Small independent business owners are part of the fabric that makes a community, (if you will indulge me a little self-importance!).  It is the local dry cleaner, the well-edited boutiques, the mom and pop restaurant, the general hardware store on the corner that make a community unique. 

Could you imagine Del Ray without St. Elmo’s or the Dairy Godmother?  Could you imagine Old Town without La Cuisine or The Christmas Attic?  These are institutions in our communities.  These are examples of businesses that make Alexandria special.  That make it more than a tourist destination or historical landmark.  That make it the home in which we live.

So, today and every day, we thank you for supporting Red Barn Mercantile and our fellow independent business owners.

Happy Independence Day!

Amy

PS:  Preston will be at the store today so stop by between the BBQ and fireworks!

PPS:  Check out this blog on shoplocalalexandria.com.  It’s great!

Hello all!

I wanted to share with you my chic new find for the summer – our family’s new beach bag…

I am NOT even close to being a hunter, but I do love me some camouflage!  The LL Bean tote is nylon on the outside and rubber on the inside, making it the perfect tote for wet bathing suits and beach towels.  It’s easy to clean out all the sand and grass after a long day at the pool or beach.  We got the Large size and it fits everything nicely.  And, for only $24 it couldn’t be better – or more chic!

Wonder Woman 2010: new feminist icon or not.  Discuss.