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Chic decor, at an online store

Two busy moms launch a Web site selling upscale, hard-to-find furniture and other items for the home.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published August 25, 2006

The Tonic Home Web site beckons the addicted home decorator with its cache of cool and stylish merchandise:

A formal armchair with zebra-striped upholstery.

An orange, pink and red abstract painting called Beeswax.

A modern egg lamp with light glowing through a constellation of holes.

If you can't stop with home decor, how about something to drape over your arm? Like a bamboo-handled purse quilted with wind-chimey shells.

Okay. So it's not exactly for the house, but it's fun.

And that's the idea, says the site's co-founder, Wendy Garraty, interior decorator, serious community volunteer and South Tampa mother of two.

"We're hoping to appeal to people who like eclectic decor but have nowhere to go to get it," she said.

The Web site, www.tonichome.com, features everything from furniture to art to home accessories like pillows, lighting and unusual decorative items such as King Charles Spaniel bookends and anthurium-shaped vases.

"We chose the name 'Tonic' because it means to energize, invigorate and add spirit to," Garraty said. "We want to bring people items that they don't see everywhere, things they can bring into their homes that will lift their spirits."

The snappy Web site, designed by Elizabeth Lambert, features the company's trademark olives and garden-green lattice scroll.

The goal was to bring high-style and hard-to-find items to shoppers in medium-sized cities like Tampa. They're even attracting customers in far-flung small towns where home shopping - particularly for chic, up-to-the-minute items like a Barbara Cosgrove lamp - is sometimes limited.

Garraty's business partner, former CNN reporter Linda Hayes, agrees.

"It's an access path to trade-only goods for people who love home design and have a great passion for it," she said.

The two came up with the idea after Garraty helped Hayes decorate her home on the Palma Ceia golf course.

"We found out that we not only had the same taste but the same ridiculous passion for home decor," joked Hayes, who has also worked in public relations and marketing.

The Web site, which promotes new designers and will eventually offer decorating tips, was a better vehicle for their business than a brick and mortar store, they decided.

Garraty said they were motivated to set up shop online for many reasons, but especially because they, as mothers of young children, could grab work time as they found it - no matter the time of day or night.

"It's funny because sometimes I'm on the computer at 1 a.m. and my husband will say, 'What are you doing?' and I tell him, 'I'm talking to Wendy,' " Hayes said.

The two are part of a burgeoning network of women in Tampa who have helped each other launch online businesses.

"My friend Yoly Pierson gave me lots of advice," Garraty said. Pierson's Web site is www.ynotshop.com.

Hayes, who lived in Tampa until late last spring when Tonic Home was formally launched, now lives with her family in Cleveland.

But distance hasn't been a problem, Garraty said. They e-mail and talk on the phone every day.

The two also go to the homes markets in Atlanta and High Point, N.C., and plan to travel to one in New York this winter.

Hayes will fly in to help Garraty staff a booth Nov. 10-12 at the Junior League of Tampa's 2006 Holiday Gift Market at the Florida State Fairgrounds.

Garraty co-chaired last year's Gift Market and is currently the Junior League's fundraising co-chairwoman.

The pair plan to donate 10 percent of their sales between now and the Holiday Gift Market back to the Junior League of Tampa.

"The Tampa community has been very supportive of us and I feel very strongly about giving back," Garraty said. "I believe very strongly in the Junior League."

In addition, Garraty hopes their Web site will appeal to other busy moms who also love good design.

She hopes Tonic Home will bring some good cheer to a lot of interiors.

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified August 23, 2006, 12:36:47]