Saratoga News Photograph by Sarah Lombardo Maggie O'Connell learned there are many advantages to making house calls for someone in the framing business. New Saratoga framing business brings the selection to its clients By Sarah Lombardo For eight years, Maggie O'Connell worked in a retail framing shop. When she heard of a business that provided framing services at customers' homes or businesses, she knew she had found something she could adapt to Saratoga. "I knew it was happening somewhere else, and I just thought, 'Silicon Valley, what better place?'" O'Connell says. So with her two sons away at college, O'Connell moved a desk and a fax machine into the television room of her home and went to work, founding Imagine It Framed. But her real office, she says, is the back of her truck. When the native of England heads out on an appointment, she loads her truck with frame samples, mats and anything else she thinks her customers might need for choosing the right frame for their photographs or artwork. "When the clients call me, I try to get as much information as possible about what they are framing," she says. "Then I expand on that. Then I try to narrow them down to the type of framing they would like, then show up with about 50 different frames." Once clients have chosen which frame, mat and style of work they want, O'Connell takes it all back to her house. "I do all the work myself," she says. O'Connell offers a choice of some 1,500 frame styles, and prides herself on providing the same services as any frame shop. The business, she says, offers clients the convenience of choosing frames for home or work without having to leave their homes or workplaces. "For the busy executive who tells his secretary to get something framed for a meeting, I can come in and work with him so that it's done the way he wants the first time," she says. "Or for a busy mum who has all the kids, taking them to a shop can be awful. This way, she can stay at home." And, O'Connell says, for clients unable to travel to framing shops because of a disability, her business offers choice. O'Connell described a situation with one client who uses a wheelchair, but had memorabilia from her participation in the Olympic torch relay that she wanted framed. Instead of sending the items to a shop with a friend, the woman was able to choose from a large selection brought to her house by O'Connell. "When it's something as personal as this, why shouldn't they have access to all the choices?" O'Connell says. For O'Connell's clients, the best advantage of her framing house calls is the chance to see how a frame will look exactly where it will be hung. "The real pleasure of working with Maggie is that you can see how [the art] looks in your home with the lighting and all that," Tina Pidwell, a customer, said. "Because it looks different in my house than it does in a studio or gallery." Another advantage of her business O'Connell cites with a grin: Working from home the past six months has shown her family what she was doing all those years in the framing shop. "I think they were actually surprised at how much I can do," she says. For more information about Imagine It Framed, call O'Connell at 741-8617. [ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Saratoga News, December 2, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.