Hello everyone! Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with friends and family 🙂 Dan and I just took it easy for once. It was amazing!!
One of my favourite memories of Thanksgiving was gathering at my family cottage in Ontario. Inevitably, my Gramma would suggest we head into town and wander the main street – window shopping and gathering ideas for Christmas presents! Then we’d head home for tea, decor magazines and dinner prep.
Well in that spirit, I decided to check out a sweet little downtown shop in our hometown of Dartmouth – one that I’m sure my Gramma would’ve adored – and share my adventures with you!
Kept Shop is at the corner of Portland Street and Dundas and it’s owned and operated by Charlotte Jewer – a young, bubbly, passionate, stylish and courageous entrepreneur. (In my opinion, exactly the kind of entrepreneurs this city needs!)
As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted with visual candy – trinkets and art, kitchen ceramics, decor items, linens – you name it. The lay-out of the shop is wonderful if you are like I am and do a couple ‘sweeps’ of the store. Every time I walked by a display, I found something I hadn’t seen before.
When I asked Charlotte about that, she said it was deliberate. She aims to have the store set-up to reflect the way ‘real people’ shop for housewares with a little bit of ‘shop around the corner’ mixed with Winners and HomeSense. 
Charlotte does hand pick every item though! And hey! She’s got a blanket ladder! (Great minds… right? hahaha)
When I was there, the store was decked out for fall, with little touches of autumnal whimsy sprinkled throughout each display. 
At any given time, there are about 50 local artists and small businesses featured at Kept. In fact, while I was there – the folks from Nova Scotia Sea Salt stopped in with a box of their product for Charlotte. I really enjoyed seeing how genuinely thrilled Charlotte was to receive, display and sell local stuff – we Nova Scotians sure are proud 🙂 
And who couldn’t love the personalized pillows by Girliture? Apparently the “City of Lakes” one is almost impossible to keep in stock! 
Safe to say, Kept is a gem in Dartmouth and I am just thrilled that it’s doing well.
I did make a purchase… but I’m hesitant to show it to you. Why? Because I can’t decide if I’m going to keep it – or give it as a Christmas gift!! haha 
You’ll just have to stop in and see all the treasures for yourself.
Speaking of treasures, I’m finally working on a post to show you some of the loot I gathered up while I was in Toronto last month. I’ll be spilling the beans (and asking for advice!) later this week.
Chat soon!
