A Warm and Friendly Place: Country Living Newbie a great pla

It’s a warm, friendly place designed to spark ideas, encourage creativity, help people add to their homes with a variety of decor, and add new life to old or antique furniture.

“We want people to feel comfortable when they walk in the store,” says Pam Jordan. “We want them to feel welcome and very homey here.”

Jordan and her husband, Bill Walsh, opened Country Living Newbie Custom Décor several years ago, shortly after moving from Florida to Tennessee. The store sells custom furniture, other home décor items, and a variety of paint and art supplies. Jordan and Walsh also offer classes for people who want to learn how to do projects themselves.

“We offer classes on furniture upcycling and refinishing,” Jordan says. “We have a local artist who teaches acrylic and watercolor art classes. Then, my husband and I do furniture painting and a D-I-Y class once a month. So, it could be how to paint a welcome sign for your porch or a door hanger for your door. And Bill makes everything for the class. He makes the door hangers and cuts them out and all of that.”

The store is a passion project of sorts for the couple. Both were in healthcare for years, with Jordan working as a nurse and Walsh as a respiratory therapist. So when they moved to Tennessee and bought a seven-acre property in Columbia, it came with a workshop. It allowed Bill to get back to carpentry which was something he hadn’t done in years. 

“He built a farm table for us, and I was like, wow, honey, that’s pretty good,” Jordan recalls. “So, I said, why don’t you let me paint it. I had never painted anything major before, but I painted it, waxed it, and thought, oh, that was kind of fun.”

The two worked together on more projects in their spare time and soon ended up getting a booth at an antique shop in Columbia to sell their work. Then, one day, Walsh saw a historic home on Main Street in Spring Hill for rent and decided to check it out.

“He went in there on a whim and called me at work and said you’ve got to come see this place. So, I left work early, went in, and said, is it. And that was the moment we knew we were going to do this full-time. So, we quit our jobs and opened a store.”

Since then, they’ve had to change locations a couple of times but are now located at 5322 Main Street.

The name comes from a blog Jordan started shortly after arriving in Tennessee. It was about embracing their new lifestyle.

“The blog was called ‘Country Living Newbie,’ and it was all about, hey, we’ve got goats, we’ve got chickens, and we’re planting a garden, “Jordan says. “It touched on being new to living in the country and sharing our experiences with things like buying a tractor and stuff.”

Their store became an extension of what they loved about learning new things, so they kept the blog name and just added ‘custom décor’ to it. 

“We like to cater to people who are new, those new to painting, new to crafting, and new to trying something different. So, the ‘newbie’ name just kind of stuck.”

People love the concept. 

“We definitely have regulars who come through to buy home décor or pick up D-I-Y paint supplies,” explains Jordan. “We support furniture flippers, and there are a lot of people in this area doing it. There are also new people moving here from California or Illinois or other places who come in for custom-built stuff or to have some of their furniture refinished because it doesn’t fit the vibe in Tennessee.”

She and Walsh are happy to provide a place that offers all of that and more. And it’s especially nice they can do it together. 

“My motto is ‘enjoy the journey.’ This is so different from what we’ve done the past 30 years. We’re soulmates, and it all just fits perfectly.”

Country Living Newbie is located at 5322 Main Street in Spring Hill.