Katy Jolley buzzes with excitement.



She’s poring over books with Hollywood photos from a bygone era, enthusing over ideas for her latest purchase. She’s seeing a façade created from the pieces she purchased from the Oriental Theatre in Portland. She’s seeing a ‘30s-styled marquee calling out Tacoma events as well as shop information. She’s visualizing the space marked by gigantic ruby-red slippers, potentially with Graumond Theatre sidewalk stylings and more Hollywood glamour within, even down to the bathrooms. She’s seeing her impressive collection of side-show paraphernalia on view. She’s seeing her business — Katy’s Antique Mall — expanding to include an extensive Deco-to-’50s–era collection (The ’50s, says Jolley, are “hotter than pancakes” — she can’t keep items from that era in the store.)



Additionally, Jolley hopes to provide restoration and salvage materials from homes to remodelers looking to replicate period styles.



The purchase that will make all her dreams possible, made with the help of friend and business partner Keith Stone, is a single-level white-painted mason-block building in the Dome District that will house her eponymous antique mall, which has been located in Freighthouse Square for the last 15 years. She says she’s been wanting to buy it for ten years; this opportunity was just a serendipitous turn of events.



In the Tacoma antique market, there has been some buzz about antiques going extinct, but that’s not how Jolley sees it. “We’re going gangbusters!” she exclaims, and the steady stream of customers wandering through her shop lends credence to her next words.

“The business is there, it’s just that you have to make it happen; you can’t just sit behind a counter, you’ve got to work.”



She adds, “The truth is, you get a better deal in little Tacoma. Seattle dealers shop us.”

Speaking about the assumption that eBay is stealing the antique audience from shops, Jolley sees the Web-based auction house as actually opening up a new market of customers, educating and empowering those who might have summarily dismissed the idea of antique furnishings.



But the draw of antiques can’t be ignored. These items, unlike that cool disposable dresser you just bought at IKEA, won’t depreciate the second after you build them — if you grow weary of your Arts and Crafts chest in ten years, there should be a collector out there drooling for the period piece.



Jolley sees that potentially merchants have fallen into hard times when they’ve removed the best merchandise from their floor in order to e-tail it, leaving the sales floor littered with inferior quality goods. Another way she describes antique merchants losing sales-floor credibility is through the sale of reproduction and import materials to help supplement slow sales.



Her own sales floor is filled with goods from reputable dealers; I spy a sweet side table with Sheraton-style tapered legs, and another lovely piece that has a Duncan Phyfe flavor to it; the prices look to me to be crazy-good for mahogany antiques.



Jolley laughs, and explains that those pieces are from her own collection, which she’s liquidating to ease the sale of the home she shares with her “sweetheart” of 25 years, Plastards bassist Bill Schlambush.



As part of the master plan in the new space, Jolley envisions creating a living space and rooftop garden where she and Schlambush will live. She visualizes the Dome District as the next big thing in terms of the affordable place in Tacoma where twenty-and thirty-something commuters can live as they commute; her bigger dream is for residents to see Tacoma not just as a bedroom community but as a viable space to live and work, and with some effort on her part, play.



The new property, which should be inhabited by October (she will remain fully operational in Freighthouse Square until that point) boasts an impressive lot size that Jolley visualizes being useful for events ranging from swap markets to bike rallies, from art parties to band practice, and of course, “We’re jonesing for a good beer garden,” she laughs.



And yet, the antiques will remain constant. As the theme song for “The Dating Show” plays above us, emphasizing the timeless “mom” quality of the items I’m looking at, I think about Jolley’s words of wisdom:



Buy what you like.

Condition, condition, condition.

Don’t settle.

Concepts to live by, really.



[Katy’s Antique Mall, through September at Freighthouse Square, 602 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.305.0203]