Holiday Season at Rescued Living
by Alex Clarkson
At 5am on a late August morning Casey Boyd can be found working in her shop arranging products and seeing what magic she can create for the store and the holidays. The owner and founder of Sisters, Oregon’s Rescued Living (RL) delights in the moments when she can bring pieces together and give customers a truly memorable experience with upcycled decor and stunning home goods. Her unique touch reflects the Pacific Northwest and an appreciation for a sustainable lifestyle.
The bar is set high for what customers hope for from RL, and Casey and her team deliver a memorable in-store experience of scents, sounds, and sights designed to celebrate and bring cheer. Whether their holiday market pop-ups feature sourdough bread artists or painters and other makers, Casey delights in curating artful displays and crafting a welcoming in-store environment. RL’s impact is strong; everyday customers say they want to move in or rent the store as an Airbnb. While she knows she can offer RL’s products online, Casey lives for creating a meaningful sensory journey for all those who enter her store.
Fostering that customer connection and building relationships with people is paramount for RL. Casey and the team at RL take pride in helping their customers with a vast array of needs and requests, and in providing a positive shopping experience. In addition to sharing ever-changing merchandise and exciting layouts, they enjoy getting to know those coming into the store and love seeing their regulars.
To enhance the customer experience, Casey and her team are prepping the store for the upcoming in-store holiday events. “Our special events with makers have always been my way to pay forward the support I’ve been blessed with over years,” Casey says.
“Our special events with makers have always been my way to pay forward the support I’ve been blessed with over years.”
–Casey Boyd, Founder, Owner, Rescued Living
This holiday season RL will have over a dozen trees in the store that will serve as the backdrop for their events. They will be creating a Winter Wonderland to kick off the season with a holiday open house on November 8. This party will focus on decor and will be a festive celebration to get in the holiday mood. A second holiday event will take place December 6. It will be another opportunity to enjoy RL’s thoughtfully curated items and help offer gifting suggestions. The RL website, RescuedLiving.com, has also been redesigned and restocked with decor, jewelry, books, candles, and kitchen, dining, and lifestyle items that enhance the magic of the season. “Between our events and the greater shopping experience to be had in Sisters, the holidays are a wonderful time to come visit us as well as our fellow businesses in town,” Casey adds.
In addition to the holiday festivities, another integral part of the RL experience is the bespoke pieces Casey finds and “rescues” or upcycles and gives new life. One such recent project was an industrial lazy Susan table. The top was made from vintage bowling alley wood that Casey refinished. An old industrial-cut gear is joined to the table on an old screw that was part of an irrigation gate and makes the functional part of the table move, and sturdy legs were locally fabricated in Sisters in the same industrial style. The buyers lived in Washington and were vacationing in Sisters. They had their travel trailer with them and Casey recalls the challenge of disassembling the table and packing it safely. Nevertheless, she and her team made it work and her customers were thrilled to be able to take it home.
“Between our events and the greater shopping experience to be had in Sisters, the holidays are a wonderful time to come visit us as well
as our fellow businesses in town.”–Casey Boyd, Founder, Owner, Rescued Living
“The collected look of the store speaks to my heart,” Casey shares. Indeed, there is always something in the works that is reflective of Casey’s viewpoint, and customers respond. As someone who began her business in a restored bus, and who continues to pick metaphorical needles out of junkyard haystacks, she translates that into a well-curated collection of useful and artful pieces.
Additionally, the service element of the business cannot be overstated. Recently Casey hand-delivered several pieces to a longtime customer who lives in the Portland area but who happened to be nearby the spot Casey was driving through. “We met her alongside the road in Madras,” Casey laughs. While she owns RL and sister brand Landmark Fine Goods, the roadside delivery is a perfect example of why Casey does what she does. Casey values connection with other people and in doing so, makes a positive impact in her customers’ lives through their homes.
As Rescued Living prepares to enter the holiday season, Casey will be rounding out a road trip with her family through Montana with a 53-foot enclosed trailer in tow. Her son races snowmobiles and his trailer has a sleeper, but it does not escape Casey that bringing this trailer means that she also has the space in case she spots any interesting industrial pieces along the way. Always open to the art of the possible, Casey muses, “Maybe I won’t find anything, but just in case I have the space to grab it.”
