MISSOURI VALLEY, Iowa (KMTV) — After working in the corporate world for 22 years and commuting almost an hour each way for over a decade, Shannon Hanna was ready for a change.
What she didn't realize was her humble beginning would transform into a growing business called HomeGrown Junk.
"I wanted to make leather cuffs, sounds strange because it’s not junk, but it was vintage,” she said. “I started that, and I was selling them out of the back of my car, at different places, concerts, work, whatever. One day I came home, we had been going to a lot of auctions, and my husband said you need to sell some of this stuff, we've got too much, and it just bloomed into HomeGrown Junk."
Hanna pours her own candles and still makes those leather cuffs. But the list of items she carries could go on and on.
"My mom makes the pillows out of seed sacs or potato sacs. We also buy anything that's vintage,” Hanna said. “We buy a lot of rust, so there could be a copula, sleds, workbenches, butcher blocks, anything that interests us. If we like it, we buy it. We do garden furniture, inside furniture, but old."
HomeGrown Junk hosts two three-day sales a year as well as attending events like Junkstock.
"I just made it happen, and that's the thing, you have to really work hard,” Hanna said. “Every single day you have to work a full day, if not more, and it's exhausting, but it's super rewarding."
HomeGrown Junk has thousands of followers on social media and Hanna calls them her junkies. The Dirt Road Dust and Rust Days attract all kinds of shoppers.
"We've had people come with trailers, and U-Hauls to buy, Hanna said. “One sale we had people from nine different states, so that was exciting, and people just hang out, there is no hurry, so they can sit out under the trees in the shade, sit in the sunshine and just hang out."
Over the years, HomeGrown Junk has expanded their homemade merchandise and with their social media and website, have shipped to the west coast.
"I just shipped to Idaho and California, so that's exciting to get our name out there with a t-shirt or a candle,” Hanna said. “That makes it for the junkies who can't get here, they can buy online."
The next Dirt Road Dust and Rust Days sale is coming up from August 27-29.
- Click here to visit the HomeGrown Junk website.
- You can also visit their Facebook page by clicking here.
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