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Homes

Keeping trim is their way of life

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published May 6, 2005

Trim is trim.

Or is it?

A few years ago, Carl and Anne Decanini knew they had stumbled across something big when they held a garage sale of sorts to rid themselves of extra trim, tassels, tie-backs and hardware from their wholesale custom window treatment business.

Neighbors, decorators and friends snapped the stuff up so fast they decided they should have another sale.

They did, with the same result.

Anne, 39, a talented seamstress who has been winning accolades for her handiwork since her teens, makes wholesale window treatments, duvet covers, pillows and other decorative items for interior designers, builders and other clients who seek out her creative designs.

"She's the most talented person with a needle I've ever known," says Carl, a former coffee salesman from the Chicago area who met his wife on a blind date in Clearwater.

Now he runs the couple's S Dale Mabry business - A Trim and Design Shop - which they literally built from the ground up. Anne built the worktable and the wood rollers that hold the trim. Carl set up the computer network, built displays and shelving that hold thousands of tassels, fringe, cording and trim that Carl believes is the largest selection in the southeastern United States.

"Every dollar had to count," Anne explains. "We're not gamblers with our money. We've worked too long and hard. I've sewed all my life to make a living. We really vacillated about how much money to put into this, but we knew there was a market out there. So far, the store is growing slowly and steadily."

Their unusual mom-and-pop shop, which opened in November in Carriage Trade Plaza, caters to the interior design trade as well as do-it-yourselfers, Anne says.

Her drapery designs, pillows and duvet covers are displayed around the 2,000-square-foot space as examples of what can be done with the products they sell: from eyelash to pompom ball to brush-and-loop to Greek key border fringe. A feast for the eye, they are arranged by color from light to dark: burgundy, blue, green, taupe, black.

What you can't make with her trim, she will sew for you. Her specialty, she explains, is "soft goods for the home," including headboards, table rounds and cornices.

The store even attracts a following among fashion and handbag designers who come for the selection of exotic beaded fringe; churches purchase the huge broom-like tassels for decorative holiday banners; mothers groups from area schools buy trim to decorate pillows and other fundraising items.

The Decaninis pride themselves on competitive prices and the amount of trim they are able to keep in stock, partly because they go on regular buying trips and purchase in large quantities.

"Even reps from trim companies walk in the door and say, "Oh, my gosh. I've never seen so much trim,' " Carl says. "That's kind of a fun thing for us. There's nothing - not one kind of trim - you could ask for that we can't get you."

[Last modified May 5, 2005, 01:31:12]