Sisters Brianne Martin and Danielle Harmadi have their products in third-party shops across the country, but now they are launching their own store in downtown Augusta.
Their business, Freshwater Design Co., sells gifts and accessories in 425 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Keychains, wall art, pet accessories and more are made with styles of lakes, mountains and the great outdoors in mind. Harmadi described their style as that of an effortlessly cool lake house in Tahoe.
“The desert’s right there, the lakes are right there, the mountains are right there,” she said. “We kind of wanted it to feel like, when you walked into the store, yeah you’re in downtown Augusta, but it transports you somewhere else.”
“Since we’ve lived all over, our style is kind of just pulled from all the places that we’ve lived,” Martin said. “We love our nature, we love our pets and everything, so we have a little bit of something for everyone.”
The sisters are originally from Wisconsin. Harmadi learned pyrography, which is also known as wood burning, while on a Utah ranch. Martin studied graphic design at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. The two combined their artistic talents for Martin’s wedding, and after the wedding, they decided to start crafting for customers. They started the business in 2016, collaborating virtually because they lived apart, until Martin quit her job and moved to Augusta to live and work with Harmadi.
“We saw the potential pretty early on that it could be something bigger,” Harmadi said. “It was just kind of a travel fund for us. We love to travel, so we wanted to just make a little extra money. We hit some early-on goals and were like ‘Hey, let’s maybe make this a career.’ ”
“The Augusta Market was our first ever market or festival that we did, and then, once I moved down, we started doing bigger shows,” Martin said. “So we would travel to Atlanta or Charleston, just in the Southeast.”
They started with using wood, and over the next three yearsprogressed to other materials like leather and velvet. But while it allowed them to sell and grow a following, the traveling was exhausting. In 2020, they decided to go completely wholesale.
“We created our wholesale line and we created a beautiful booth that we set up at the Atlanta market,” Martin said. “We went there for the week and we got 17 new accounts, so 17 stores, placed bulk orders to carry our product in their stores all over the country and it was awesome.”
They upgraded their tools and machinery to triple their goods, but were working out of a large chunk of Harmadi’s house. They were given an opportunity in early 2021 to move into a prime spot on Broad Street in downtown Augusta, and after much deliberation, they jumped on it.
“This is kind of our vision for something we wanna do,” Harmadi said. “We have about 30% of our product in here and 70% products we love, products with stories that give back and things like that. But, eventually, we’d like to have a few Freshwaters throughout the country.”
Martin said they are looking forward to connecting with the other local retailers, but they are especially looking forward to bringing their business face-to-face with customers.
“We’ve been so online and on social media and everything, it’s gonna be so awesome to have a brick and mortar where people can come in and we can talk to people and see them and have them react in person to our products,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming.”
The grand opening is Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The store is located at 1022 Broad St. near Art on Broad and Soy Noodle House.