BY LUCIE KRISMAN
Last year, Courtney Gebauer was planning to clean out the inventory of her home decor resale business and begin looking for a new job when she had an “Aha!” moment.
After making all of her inventory available for sale and making more profit in one day than she normally did in the span of one month, she realized it might be feasible to turn reselling into a full-time job.
Then she saw the vacant property at 710 Main St., formerly Wakarusa Brewery, while driving through Eudora one day and knew she wanted to look into it.
“It was actually really seamless,” Gebauer said. “The owners were so easy to work with. I wanted the building so much. I just loved it.”
Since then, Gebauer and her family have begun the process of moving furniture and home decor store Eudorable Home into downtown Eudora. The store is currently under renovation, and Gebauer hopes to open in mid-March. Among the items that will be sold there are dining chairs, accent chairs, light fixtures, side tables, mirrors and decorative signs.
Tentative hours for the store are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with the remaining weekdays possibly having appointment-only basis. Gebauer said the store will be operated solely by her and her husband, Andrew Gebauer, at first but Eudorable Home may later hire an additional full-time employee for weekdays.
Gebauer said she originally became interested in the home decor business because she loves helping people plan out what their homes will look like. After all, she said, it runs in the family.
“My mother-in-law is actually an interior designer, and my dad does home improvement,” Gebauer said. “It kind of has always been in my genes, if you will, to make things look pretty.”
Gebauer operated her home decor resale business, originally called Katie Courtney Resale, out of her DeSoto home for nine months before acquiring her store. She and her family closed on the property at the end of December after purchasing it for $130,000.
Gebauer purchases her inventory from different wholesalers around the Kansas City metro area. After outgrowing her garage space inventory-wise, Gebauer said she is excited to have a bigger space to show the full extent of what Eudorable Home has to offer.
“With my inventory being in three different places, it was hard,” Gebauer said. “I couldn’t show everybody everything. I think this will be really great just to be able to showcase all the products so people can see everything. It only made sense to open up a store instead of constantly having to constantly put inventory outside for the driveway sales and keep moving it over and over.”
The Eudora City Commission granted Eudorable Home $5,000 in grant funding this week for the store’s interior and exterior renovations as part of the city’s Downtown Grant Program. Gebauer said she is excited to watch it all come together and plans to feature local decor vendors in the store, such as candlemakers.
“It’s just been really fun transforming the place,” Gebauer said. “I’m excited to spotlight different vendors in the area that maybe don’t have a store.”
Gebauer previously worked for the Olathe Chamber of Commerce for five years and values supporting local businesses. She said she is happy to be adding a reason for people to spend their money in Eudora and is grateful to her family for their help in putting Eudorable Home together before it opens this spring.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom and I’m able to have both the balance of running a business and being able to be a mom,” Gebauer said. “It’s really a family effort.”
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