Gracious Designs to close in Jonesborough

Downtown Jonesborough will soon say goodbye to one its most popular stores.
After nearly nine years in business in the historic district, Marty Glasgow, owner of Gracious Designs, will close the doors at her Jonesborough shop on East Main Street next month.
In an email sent to the Jonesborough Area Merchants and Service Association on Oct. 17, Glasgow cites “physical and family issues”as her reasons having to “limit my work schedule.”
Glasgow plans to consolidate the Jonesborough store with her larger Gracious Designs location in Johnson City. A sale of merchandise and fixtures at the Jonesborough store began Oct. 19.
The store will be open for business through the end of the day on Saturday, Nov. 16. Glasgow plans to be completely moved out by Nov. 22.
Glasgow said Gracious Designs was born out of her passion for helping friends decorate their homes. The store specializes in home décor and specialty items.
Glasgow said repeated injuries kept her from being as active in her business as she would have liked and after opening her second location in 2011, she soon found running two stores was just too much.
“We just did everything we could to stay open here,” Glasgow said, “But at some point, you just have to have time to heal your body and have time for your family. My brain says I’m 20, but my body says, ‘Ha ha ha.’”
Glasgow isn’t ruling out the possibility that she might come back one day.
“If something opens up in the future, that we could put some smaller things in, there is no promise we won’t be back,” she said. “But for now, we want to try to help find a person for this space and we’re talking to people. Just because we can’t have a store here right now, we want Jonesborough to be blessed. We want to take care of our customers and our town.”
It has been an emotional decision, Glasgow said. “One of the hardest things for me is that we’ve been part of so many people’s lives. People have picked out their baby gifts and their wedding gifts. We’ve cried with them through divorces and tried to comfort them when they had deaths in their families,” she said. “When we close the doors for good on Nov. 22 and hand over the keys to the owner of the building, we’ll sit down and cry. It has been a very tough decision and we will truly miss being here.”