Linda’s Affordable Creations: Etowah’s Newest Shop

Etowah, Tennessee is very proud to welcome new store owner Linda McKinley to the downtown shopping district. Linda’s named her shop Linda’s Affordable Creations, which is located at 626 Tennessee Ave., just a couple doors north of the Gem Theater. To make sure you can locate her shop, Linda keeps several unique eye-catching items outside the entrance. Today’s display was an antiqued green metal table and chairs with a few accessories that would be very comfortable on a patio or sun porch.

Walking inside and down memory lane, Linda utilizes every nook and cranny as well as walls and door tops. She loves antiques and vintage, whether it is furniture or glassware or gardening decor. She told me she got her strong antique influence from her mother Tonya Wilder, and her creative niche from her dad Harvey Wilder. McKinley grew up enjoying the outdoors, especially gardening, in a small rural town of Newburgh, Ind. Her dad and mom have passed on to her respect and appreciation for things that were designed and created by hand. She loves mid-century vintage like glass made by Fire King, Fenton, Weller and others.

Linda often gets her display ideas from something she may have read or seen in a flea market type magazines that she avidly reads, then adds her own touch of design and flair. If she runs across a piece of furniture that has about seen its last days, she will give it a good cleaning and paint it or whitewash it, using a personal stroke technique, brushing till it looks and feels perfect for her. She says with some pieces of wood, it may take only a coat or two, and others it may take several over a couple days, depending on the type of wood and how worn it may be. No matter how it starts out, after the love Linda puts back in it, chances of it staying in her store long is very slim.

Linda’s parents live in Western Kentucky now and both enjoy the trips to Etowah to help her at the store. Linda quite often finds herself brain-storming ideas to her dad that involve old wood she’s acquired, be it barn wood, old flooring, or new wood. She passes the ideas by Harvey Wilder and he takes them to home and applies his skills with all the right tools, brings it back to Linda. She adds the finishing stain, paint, and waxes to the finishes she’s imagined.

You’ll find other repurposed things in the store besides furniture. McKinley loves architectural pieces, old metal, ornate things be it metal, iron, or wood. She has an eye for detail on furniture with knobs, curves, and lots of crevices that paint will just flow into and when finished, catch your eye. She likes to take broken and well-worn things and add her talent and love to bring each back to life or as she says put life back into them making new creations or old look like new again.

Linda loves to garden and since she’s quite busy with the store, she has made a gardening room where she can collect all kinds of gardening tools, art, pottery, and pretty things to accent the shelves or cabinets.

Linda welcomes you to visit and find out what her latest creation might be. She tries to keep it full with new old favorites and never turns away a hunt. If you find something that’s really calling your name, don’t leave Linda’s Affordable Creations without it, because someone else is going to love it, too.

By Maxine B. Jones, Ocoee, Tennessee