JEWELERS TALKING ABOUT “hands-on” work are usually referring to the delicate work of setting stones or crafting metalwork. But an intrepid few take the phrase in a different direction — wielding paintbrushes and jackhammers to create retail spaces that reflect their unique visions while saving money in the process. Whether they’re demolishing walls or painting pedestals pink, these entrepreneurs share a common thread: the drive to create spaces that reflect their brands and the willingness to get their hands dirty.

The building had previously served as a corner store, fast-food restaurant, pet shop, and cubicle-divided office space. PHOTO COURTESY OF ONCE UPON A DIAMOND

Jordan Brown, Once Upon A Diamond

For the Brown family, owners of Once Upon a Diamond in Shreveport, LA, it was a full-on construction project.

Steve Brown and his sons Jordan and Nicholas, armed with construction experience from volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity, transformed a tired building into a showcase for vintage jewelry when they opened a decade ago. Jordan and Nicholas also had architecture degrees in their skills arsenal.

“We designed and built the majority of what you see with our own hands,” says Jordan Brown. The building had previously served as a corner store, fast-food restaurant, pet shop, and cubicle-divided office space, each leaving its own challenges behind.

The family’s background gave them the confidence to tackle the massive project. “If we could do it, we did it,” Jordan explains. That philosophy likely saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor costs, though it came with its own price in time and unexpected discoveries.

The Brown family designed and built their store’s interior with their own hands, a major project that took eight months.

While they hired contractors for major exterior work — adding a second story, installing a new roof, applying stucco and expanding the entrance for double doors — the Browns tackled the interior themselves. They dismantled cubicles, demolished and rebuilt a bathroom (taking turns with a jackhammer), and painstakingly leveled the floor.

“We had to tear down 70% of the building ourselves and you don’t know what’s behind those walls,” Jordan recalls. “What you’d think would take four months took double, and the same with the cost of it. The flip side is you end up with a beautiful product.”

Drywall proved to be their tipping point. “It took us two weeks to do 20% of it,” Jordan admits. “Then we hired a couple of guys who did the rest of the building in two DAYS. Sometimes it’s worth it to pay a professional. You have to pick and choose your battles. That drywall, I will never do that again. But when you see a professional do it right, it’s pretty cool to watch.”

The renovation consumed their lives for months, with the family working in their original leased location during the day, then putting in four to six more hours at the new space each evening.

“It’s weird to think about what we would bring to the table from architecture, but I learned Photoshop, organizational skills and structural skills, and I look at jewelry like small-scale architecture,” Jordan says.

Using CAD — the 3D modeling program he mastered in architecture school — allowed everyone to visualize the final result before the first wall came down.
The result is a striking contrast that surprises visitors: a modern black and white exterior gives way to a bold interior rendered in shades of gold, redwood, and charcoal gray. “The burst of enthusiasm and color inside makes you want to circulate and explore,” Jordan explains. “Most people say it’s beautiful and they didn’t expect it.”

The old flooring had to be replaced with rustic oak, at left; The Artful Eye boasts a handcrafted look that fits the city’s Western and gold-mining history.

Dave Rabellino, The Artful Eye Jewelry Design Center

In 2000, when jewelers Dave and Sherrie Rabellino opened their second location of The Artful Eye Jewelry Design Center in Prescott, AZ, they moved into a former cattleman’s shop in a circa 1903 building.

Dave Rabellino was determined to do the renovation himself with the help of jeweler Kevin O’Neill. Rabellino had experience helping his dad flip houses that his mom found while working as a real estate agent.

“I’m a compulsive builder,” Rabellino says. “When you’re a jeweler, everything is so small and intense. When you’re building, it’s just a release from that.”

They gutted the space not long after they moved in, an effort followed by a couple more renovations over the years. After removing layer upon layer of vinyl and plywood, they uncovered old Southern yellow pine at the bottom. But it was in bad shape, and they covered it over with rustic oak flooring.

“Flooring might have been the most physical,” Dave says. “But we also had to put up new walls and electricity. It was a total remodel. The store was so butchered up from people adding on, adding on, adding on, that we had to start over.

“Kevin is both a welder and a jeweler, so between the two of us, we had a lot of skills. A friend of mine who was a business inspector helped me with a lot of the technical stuff that had to be done to code.”

Dave Rabellino rebuilt his store in a circa-1903 building in downtown Prescott, AZ.

They also handcrafted the tile and marble mosaic entryway and all of the showcases. Three of those cases sit atop old mining ore cars found in Arizona mines. The counter, too, is custom made, with wood pillars, rock facets and a shingled roof. They kept the original tin ceilings. The doorknobs are custom made of clear quartz crystal balls.

“When we first did the store, we put together the cases quickly,” Rabellino says. “After 15 years or so, they started getting worn out, scuffed up. So, in 2017, we built new cases for the store that are bigger and taller. They’re metal framed with a patina to make them look rustic and rusty; the bases are hardwood. They will be there forever.”

The most common reaction Dave has gotten over the years to the store he largely built, is, “Are you available for hire?”

Meredith Lusk and artist Abbi Custis collaborated to create an installation that is both a practical sales tool and the focal point of the store.

Meredith Lusk, Moonrise Jewelry

Meredith Lusk, owner of Moonrise Jewelry in Cape Charles, VA, specializes in a unique niche: custom handcrafted jewelry fashioned from fish leather.

As she prepared to open her store in a century-old building in 2021, budget constraints became creative opportunities. “We didn’t have the budget to hire an interior designer,” Lusk says. “My staff and I designed the layout, office and studio to be both engaging and efficient. We planned and executed a complete renovation, designing, crafting, or customizing nearly all our displays and decor.”

While architect Wayne Anderson restored the exterior facade based on a 1920s photograph — including the original transom windows and canopy — Lusk’s team transformed the interior. The renovation uncovered architectural treasures: original restored pine floors and two brick fireplaces that anchor the space.

The focal point of the store, though, is an interactive swatch board showcasing 150 fish leather varieties. The fish “swim” across a hand-painted river spanning the entire back wall.

Lusk says that the swatch board was a matter of salvaging what could’ve been a disaster. She’d originally planned a completely different installation that required a specialty epoxy finish. Unfortunately, two days before the opening, an artisan’s equipment failure led to an unsightly mess in the form of huge, thick, glassy drips and streaks down the wall. It seemed there’d be no way to fix it other than taking the wall board down.

While brainstorming solutions, Lusk had what she describes as a little stroke of genius. She thought about creating artwork to be placed on top of the damage, covering the drips. The installation could also showcase the fish leather swatches customers peruse to choose colors for their custom jewelry. “People love that we have 150 colors of fish leather,” Lusk says. “We had kept them hidden behind the counter before that. I thought, why not put our most unique feature on display?”

Lusk had collaborated with local artist Abbi Custis, whose work was to be displayed in the store as interior design elements. They worked together to create the display to look like a river flowing vertically up the wall. To be able to take down the swatches to look at them and make the experience interactive, she made the display magnetic.

“I took painter’s tape and mocked up the shape I wanted,” she says. “Then I took butcher paper and did a cutout template, and a local carpenter who did some of the cabinetry took the template and cut it out of MDF board.”

She painted the board and covered it with magnetic plaster. “I took the whole thing outside, and Abbi and I painted it together to make it look like a river.”

Custis’ style was perfect for the piece because in her artistic process, she often pours paint, uses air guns and spray bottles, and likes metallic paints, gold and silver leaf and glitter. Altogether, her techniques create a vibrant abstract look.

Once that was dry, they poured epoxy resin on it and sealed it to make it clear and glossy. They adhered it to the wall. A local engraver laser cut fish shapes out of wood, spray painted them, added the fish leather to each of them and added magnets.

Now, Lusk can easily add more color samples, and when clients want to custom design something in blue, for example, she can pull out five different shades of blue to compare side by side.

“We were on a budget and a tight timeline,” she says. “That burst of creativity was born out of necessity, and it’s become an iconic part of the store.”

Other unique displays created by the Moonrise Jewelry team are grouped on the north wall of the store. These include fish leather bow ties displayed on dock poles, earrings displayed in portholes, and a rainbow-hued grid wall of their bestselling fish leather cuff bracelets.

Amanda Eddy enlisted her husband, David Eddy, to make custom displays for her store.

Amanda Eddy, Amanda Deer

Not every DIY effort requires demolition and reconstruction. For Amanda Eddy of Amanda Deer Jewelry in Austin, a focused project made all the difference.

Her store occupies a late 19th-century building in downtown Austin, where structural changes were out of the question due to the store’s historical status. The building did come with original Austin stone on the walls and beams on the ceilings, providing a strong foundation for the aesthetic she wanted to create.

When it came to choosing displays, however, she couldn’t find just the right thing to fit with her brand vibe and the vintage nature of the store itself. She created an inspiration image of the type of pedestal jewelry displays she dreamed of. Her husband, who is in tech professionally and does woodworking on the side, built the pedestals and created the necklace displays. He cut them out of wood and painted them pink to add a pop of color to the store. “It looked like a Pepto Bismol bottle exploded in the garage in the process,” Eddy recalls.

The displays have proven remarkably durable, demonstrating that they are true survivors. “Three years ago, our building had a fire, and we had to move out of our space for 30 days. All the water and soot from a kitchen fire next door came into our space and the floors buckled up.” Floors, drywall, rugs, couches — everything else was a total loss. But the displays, although covered in ash, survived with just a cleaning.

Eddy also employs simple clear acrylic photo stands throughout the showroom, which they update seasonally with images from collection launches that they print in-house. “They look incredibly high-end, but they’re actually an affordable Amazon find,” Eddy notes.

Eddy recommends hiring a handyman and developing a concept with inspirational images to create DIY displays. “Displays are limited and often look the same,” she says. “DIYing gives you a way to breathe your own brand into the store floor.”

Jim Tuttle, Green Lake Jewelry Works

Jim Tuttle isn’t content to oversee construction from a distance. The Green Lake Jewelry Works owner designs stores in CAD, builds his own showcases, and climbs ladders to hang light fixtures and decor. His two most recent stores — in Bellevue, WA, and a new Seattle location that opened in October — bear the unmistakable mark of his imagination and craftsmanship.

When Tuttle opened his Bellevue store in 2016, he couldn’t find showcases that matched what he had in mind. So, he built them himself. The massive undertaking delayed the store’s opening by a month, but for Tuttle, it was the only way to get exactly what he wanted.

His involvement didn’t stop at the showcases. Tuttle designed the entire Bellevue store, hung all the lights, and personally placed the wood decorations. “I like being on site and figuring it out as I go a little bit,” he explains.

In October 2025, Tuttle opened a new 12,000-square-foot Seattle store in a lifestyle center, just down the street from the old Seattle studio. True to form, he was there every single day of construction from March through October. He designed the space in Matrix, sent it to an architect for permit drawings, and then dove into the physical work — helping the electrician, installing light fixtures, and doing woodworking with his team.

For this location, Tuttle built custom sit-down cases with his friend, the late jeweler and inventor Jeff High, in High’s garage shop in Lafayette, LA. Using fir, walnut, and bloodwood, they created a two-case set with built-in monitors, giving designers computer screens at their workstations. Each station features two drawers and granite center sections.

One of the Seattle store’s most striking features is its floor mural, a signature feature in all incarnations of Green Lake. About 40 team members worked on it, with Tuttle and his artists projecting CAD renderings onto the floor to trace meaningful motifs: koi fish, dragons, orcas, mountains, and other designs that appear in their archives of clients’ custom designed rings.

Eugene Notovich, Bravo Jewellers

A decade ago, when brothers Edward and Eugene Notovich were ready to open Bravo Jewellers, their retail store in Carlsbad, CA, they found a 1,200 square-foot space in a perfect high-end location. During the six months it took to negotiate a lease, the brothers absorbed store design inspiration from Pinterest and from restaurants and stores they visited in person or online. They wanted something modern but not too far-out, a place with a wow factor to create a singular experience for their customers.

When they took possession, it was a newly built blank box with a cement floor and four unfinished walls. They designed every detail, from the layout and the shape of the ceiling to the outdoor sign and the wallpaper. Eugene, a CAD designer, modeled the entire build-out in CAD, and they refined the layout repeatedly until it matched their workflow needs and space limitations.

They designed their showcases down to the millimeter and had them custom manufactured to specifications that covered measurements, drawer count, what each case would display, the wood grain look, the frameless glass style and the type and placement of the lighting.

As they began hiring people to do some of the work, Notovich began to think that he could do it better himself. So, he and his brother, a cousin and a couple of friends built out most of the store, hiring the appropriate professionals for anything that required licensing and code compliance.

“For about six months, we were working essentially every day from morning until around 11 p.m. Doing the work ourselves wasn’t just a ‘hands-on’ idea — it was truly physical, long-hour labor: painting, coordinating and directing licensed trades, putting up drywall, assembling and installing key elements, and setting up all equipment.”

One challenge was to build a showroom and manufacturing environment in a tight space where everything is done in house: casting, setting, repairs, custom design, etc.

They had to accommodate benches, casting/investing equipment, 3D printers, offices, and even a small kitchen with careful attention to workflow, sound control and what would be visible to customers. They also created an area dedicated to custom design, where clients could sit comfortably and talk through designs without the noise and traffic from the repair counter or main showroom.

Family and friends worked nonstop for six months to open Bravo Jewellers.

They had hoped to open before Christmas, but the build-out ran about two months longer than expected, and they opened in February 2016. “It was really a struggle,” Notovich says. “We even moved the safe ourselves. I injured my foot. But even with an injured foot, we were doing the work because we had to get opened; otherwise, we wouldn’t have made it.”

In the past 10 years, they’ve continued to upgrade the workshop with new equipment, printers, upgraded benches and top tier tools to accommodate the level of work produced by their production team of jewelers, CAD designers and an engraver.

Jennifer Farnes designed her flooring with Matrix CAD and helped assemble and hang her massive chandelier.

Jennifer Farnes, Revolution Jewelry Works

Owner Jennifer Farnes designed her whole store, Revolution Jewelry Works in Colorado Springs, CO, from color selection, layout and artwork to lighting and the floor plan. The design fused wood and metal for an industrial look, and she worked with a local cabinet maker to create showcases, work booths and displays using Colorado reclaimed woods.

She’s not afraid of hands-on work. As a teenager, she worked construction with her dad during summers and on weekends to remodel restaurants and residences. She has experience with everything from sheetrock to plumbing.

“I was a tiny thing in high school, but I was scrappy,” she says. “It was hard work, but when you’re done and it looks flawless, it’s very satisfying.” She says she didn’t attempt her old specialty of sheetrock in her store because “floor to ceiling here is 18 feet, and I’m not 17 anymore.”

For the floors, she designed the pattern in Matrix CAD and worked with a flooring company to lay out the pattern using a scaled grid in 5-foot sections. When the floors were poured and still wet, she helped out the mom-and-pop floor company who needed to quickly manipulate the polyurea with a leaf blower to give it the look of liquid metal in platinum and crimson before it all dried.

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The crown jewel is the 350-pound dream chandelier she sourced that hangs just over the entrance. Farnes worked with two professionals to assemble and hang the chandelier, which has 10,500 pieces. “It was tedious,” she says. “Between three people, it took us a week, 120 hours.” She was photographed crawling up the scaffolding to hang the last crystal piece.

Being intimately involved with building her store was deeply satisfying. “That’s why I like stone cutting so much. I can see the result of hours of work at the end of it. It reminded me of growing up on a farm and working in construction with my dad. It made me feel productive and successful.”

Derrick Pyke, Everglow Jewelry

When derrick pyke secured a lease on a former pool supply store in Tampa, FL, in 2024, he and his wife Kayla faced a monumental task on a tight budget. The space needed to be completely stripped and rebuilt to become Everglow Jewelry.

Pyke had been eyeing an empty pool supply store with a for-rent sign for a while. Before he knew it would be his store, he and his wife, Kayla, began planning ideal layouts and paint colors with a simple design software to fit its dimensions, just in case. They wanted it to be bright, modern and casually cool.

When they secured the lease in May 2024, they got to work quickly.

The walls had been covered with so many hanging shelves screwed into them that when Pyke removed them, he was left with thousands of holes in the walls.

To cut costs, they shopped for used equipment, waited for end-of-year sales, and hired friends for work they couldn’t do themselves, such as electrical. Instead of hiring interior designers or a construction crew, they did everything else themselves — a challenging and at times painful undertaking for Derrick, who suffered chronic back pain. But determination to achieve his dream kept him going.

“For our brand design, we used a professional graphic designer who is also our friend and former coworker,” Pyke says. “For the renovations, we had help from a huge base of talented friends in our community. For our store photos, we asked another former coworker and great friend.”

Pyke says it’s reasonable to assume he saved as much as $50,000 with his DIY efforts, although he did not obtain construction estimates before doing the work himself.

The grand opening was in September 2024. When someone compliments the store appearance, he tells them that his wife designed it. “If they ask if she is an interior designer I say, ‘No, she works in grants.’ After the massive effort this store took, I don’t think she is in any rush for a career change.”