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Meet Steve and Jonelle Kelly of The Picker’s Palace in Melrose District

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve and Jonelle Kelly.

Steve and Jonelle Kelly are authentic Arizona pickers. From old barns to family estates, this creative duo has always loved rusty, primitive, and old treasures. The Picker’s Palace started as a small hobby for the couple as they planned for 3 kids heading to college at the same time. It blossomed into two exciting stores that are side by side in Downtown Phoenix. “We have his and hers stores” jabs Jonelle with a laugh.

“We were buying and restoring vintage pieces for the love of it, the business evolved from our passion for all things old. We really enjoy finding beautiful things and re-homing them.” explains Steve Kelly.

Open only 4 days each month on the 3rd Thursday thru Sunday, The Picker’s Palace features vintage and antique home decor and collectibles creatively showcased. The stores are different every month. The new “Maker’s Room” is full of the things you need to bring projects alive from found metal pieces to doors and windows and gears. “You never know what we’ll have in the makers room. We love to get rusty metal and fabulous old wood for the stores” Steve shares. “We love the creative projects that happen with the cool stuff we find”.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Any entrepreneur that claims it’s been a smooth road has a good publicist. We’ve had to work to balance family life with business. Like most entrepreneurial people, we are workaholics. For us, business and pleasure blend in this adventure. We love what we do. Our love of it all often leads to exhaustion too!

Because the business has grown very quickly, we’ve had a few times when our own success created problems. We don’t get to “order” cool stuff, we have to find it. When we have a really successful event or month, we can nearly run out of awesome vintage stuff. This means that on multiple occasions, we’ve had to take on picks several states away. One of the biggest adventures took us to the Oregon border and back in a 40 hour round trip. We picked an old barn off a dirt road, loaded up our truck and trailer with treasures and made it back to Phoenix. It took a lot of coffee for that road trip but it was worth it!

Please tell us about The Picker’s Palace.
The Picker’s Palace, in downtown Phoenix, is only open 4 days each month which is always like a vintage event. We make vintage and antique home decor come alive with creative presentations and interesting and unusual pieces. We have fun and we make it fun. Most important, because we really get out and pick from barns and buildings, we find stuff at great prices and work hard to bring real and interesting stuff to our guests at affordable prices. We know they appreciate a good deal too! Our motto is “Real Vintage at Sweet Prices”.

From rusty gears to tin, reclaimed wood, windows, and doors, our “Makers Room” is the place that inspires and brings projects to life.

Are you looking for something special? Do you have a collection that you are always looking to add to? Tell us about it and we’ll keep you in mind when we’re on our road trips and picks. We have a great track record for finding cool stuff our guests are searching for and we take great pride in that.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Jonelle loves to share that her love of finding treasures started very early in life. She was always at her father’s side when he would scour swap meets and flea markets for car parts as he restored classic Fords. Being Dad’s sidekick meant hitting the road long before the sun came up and wandering rows of stuff with a flashlight to be the first one to find the elusive piece or part. Those great adventures taught her the thrill of the hunt and the art of the deal. It stayed with her for a lifetime.

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Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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