Chelsea Hooper was nineteen when she started painting furniture as a hobby. When people started asking her if they could buy the furniture, she thought to herself, This could be a business! And she was right.
Hooper, owner of Red Poppy Pickin’ in Mechanicsville, opened her first location – a showroom and warehouse – at the age of twenty-one. “I also taught classes in painting furniture. At the time, I was lucky if I had one customer a day. No one knew the store was there,” she says.
Within six months, Hooper, a Varina School alum, had a huge following.
“People started showing up for the events I would do. A lot of customers wanted to take one of my classes and then they wanted to sell their stuff in my store. I had about twenty people selling merchandise in the showroom,” she says.
She expanded the store from 2,000 to 7,000 square feet in six months. Within the next year, she expanded again to 10,000 square feet. Now, she averages around seventy-five vendors and consignors. She keeps 25 percent of the store for her own creations.
The store continues to thrive and Hooper gets to “do what I love – painting and designing – every single day,” she says.
When it comes to the booth spaces in her showroom, she admits she’s “very specific about what comes in and out of the store,” she says. “Most of the vendors have been here since I opened.”
To create more customer interest, Hooper holds special events throughout the year that draw in people from around the area and beyond. “I think people come to my events just because they want to see the designs we are doing,” she says.
Events at Red Poppy Pickin’ Showroom
Hooper holds a summer event at the showroom on May 11 and a birthday celebration for the business on June 29. This year, she will celebrate nine years in business.
Her largest event kicks off the Christmas season. It starts with a pre-shop experience from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at which time, the public is invited in.
“Last year, we had 200 people paying to come in to see stuff early,” Hooper says. “When we open for the regular hours, the line is out the door.”
She also participates in Bizarre Bazaar. Last year, her booth won best booth design at the November-December show. This spring, she won most artistic booth.
Spring is also the time she participates in an antique event in Berryville, Virginia, Lucketts Spring Vintage Market.
“We design stuff specific to that event,” she says. “We do a different twist when we go there.”
Motherhood, Starting a Business, and Inspiring Independence
Hooper, the mom of two daughters (baby Samantha, Taelynn, a toddler) faced some time management challenges at work after having her first daughter. “Now, I have a huge support team. They help me a lot. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t know if I could do as much as I do,” she says.
She typically works in the showroom four days a week — her newborn, like Taelynn, is always with mom at work. When she’s not in the showroom, Hooper is either finding furniture at yard sales, estate sales, Goodwill, or painting furniture.
Before having her children, Hooper didn’t know if she was cut out for motherhood. “It was life-changing because I am very independent, and I wasn’t taking care of anything but me. Now, I have babies to take care of,” she says, adding the girls are her best friends. “Now, I want four kids. It’s been pretty awesome.”
She hopes her daughters will be interested in being creative and working to become entrepreneurs like their mom.
“I hope they can work for themselves and create a life away from working nine-to-five. It’s made me a different person,” she says “I feel like owning your own business makes you a strong person. I want my girls to be strong and independent. I want them to build a life they would enjoy comfortably.”
