The Painted Barn helps you decorate your way

By Laurie Gordon
Lafayette — On Thursday, September 13, at 6 pm, there will be a very unique fundraiser for Kittatinny Regional High School Football. To take part, head to the Painted Barn Market, in Lafayette Village, and customize your own stencil.
“We do many fundraisers for Non-Profit organizations," said Painted Barn's owner Christine Logsdon. "We offer them mostly during the week in the daytime or evening. We post the fundraiser on our website, and then they advertise the fundraiser. The Kittatinny Football booster club approached us for this one, and it's going to be a big hit and something different. Our signs are $55 to $65 for fundraisers and everyone is able to customize their own stencil. We design your stencil, send you a proof and have it all ready for you when you come in. You get to stain and pick all your colors the day of your event.”
Logsdon and her husband Ernie created Painted Barn Market back in 2012.
“It was during Hurricane Sandy," she said. "We were without power, so I was searching on my phone learning about 'chalk paint.' I started reading blogs about different techniques and was fascinated with how easy it looked. I was not happy with my job in an office and was looking for something different."
She worked out of her garage and barn for years and sold furniture from my facebook page and on facebook garage sale sites.
"We rented a space in Andover and Newton until we found our first retail shop on Route 15 right in Lafayette. We stayed there for three years and started our DIY Workshops in that shop. We struggled with space there and also the parking was not ideal. We were looking for the last year for a new spot and were thrilled to see the Old Lafayette Village being redone. My parents owned three different shops in the Village back when it first opened and I worked in their shops when my children were little. We have such great memories of the Village and even got married right in the "church" in the village. We moved into our shop/DIY Workshop in April 2017 and it was the best business decision we have made. The shop and DIY workshop is wonderful, the foot traffic is so much better here then right on Route 15 in our old shop, the parking is plentiful and The Shoppes at Lafayette is absolutely beautiful. We really have found a community here of excited business owners and the owners and manager of the Shoppes are so supportive and we are excited about all the activities that they are planning.”
Logsdon said they decided on the name The Painted Barn, now Painted Barn Market, because her family teased her that she should start painting something other than their barn on the farm.
“I and had always loved taking vintage family heirlooms and making them my own. When my grandmother passed away in Ohio, I was given the child's desk my cousins and I played at and the highchair we all sat in as babies and they were both covered in many layers of paint - topped off with my grandma's favorite color (turquoise - that I now call 'Sephronia Blue.' That is why my logo has turquoise in it. I stripped and stained the desk and still have it in my home and the highchair is still in my mom's home and all my children and nieces and nephews have used the highchair.”
Logsdon was born in Elyria, Ohio and moved to Lafayette when she was 10.
“I have always felt Lafayette is my home,” she said. “I love that our shop is right in Lafayette and we feel right at home here. We have lived in beautiful Hampton, NJ for over 20 years.”
She started transforming furniture with the desk and the highchair, as well as a hope chest her mother passed down to her.
"When I started I was stripping furniture and then sanding and staining everything - taking all that Sephronia Blue off the pieces. Now Sephronia Blue is my favorite color. My grandmother painted everything in that color and would love that I was following in her footsteps and painting furniture now - maybe not everything in turquoise....but I would love to.”
She added, “Our business is truly a family business. My husband Ernie works here. He is known as the "color man." My oldest daughter will fill in at parties and makes all our mugs, pillows and custom wedding signs. My mom, Laura Camp, works two days a week in the shop and loves promoting our business with her commercials. Our youngest daughter Emily works all the parties. She is leaving for college and will be so missed by us and our customers. And our two sons Andrew, who will be leaving for the Marines in November, and Brian, who now lives in Florida, always helped when moving furniture and building signs.”
Logsdon met her husband in 1984 when she was was a secretary at Picatinny Arsenal and he was an engineer. He still works there. They were married in 1989 and have four children: Katie 28, Brian 26, and twins Emily and Andrew 18. The couple has built two homes in Hampton on Church Road. With their second home, they built on an old Dairy Farm and started their Hobby Farm there in 2002.
The business in The Shoppes at lafayette Village is now a market and workshop. The market sells home decor, wood signs and furniture, It also carries Dixie Bell Paint and DIY Paint so customers can paint their own furniture and home decor.
She said, “We are planning on many new workshops starting this fall. We host public open paint workshops, private workshops, kids workshops, Corporate Team Building, and fundraisers. We still paint furniture to sell in our shop, but love to show our customers how easy it is to transform their own furniture and home décor.”
The Painted Barn Market is located within The Shoppes at Lafayette For further information about the Kittatinny Football fundraiser on September 13, to schedule a fundraiser or for general information, call 973-862-6333 or e-mail: paintedbarnmarket@gmail.com