Photo by Leah Ingram Eagle.
Space Cadets
Kim McBrayer, owner of Space Cadets, stands in her new store in Brook Highland Shopping Center.
It was one morning when Kim McBrayer couldn’t find her son’s field trip shirt for school that she first realized the effect being unorganized had on her life, and knew she needed to make a change.
“It hit me so hard when I saw the impact my messiness had on somebody else,” McBrayer said. “I knew I had to do something.”
In 2001, organizing wasn’t the phenomenon that it is now. McBrayer only found two books in the library about how to organize your home and felt like she was the only person who didn’t know how to do it.
She did in fact organize her home, and was soon organizing the homes of others.
“I knew I wanted to own my own business one day, but didn’t know what it would look like at that point in time. I never expected it to turn into what it is.”
What it has turned into is a thriving organizing business. She recently relocated her store, Space Cadets, from Valleydale Road to a new showroom in Brook Highland Plaza that opened in November 2019.
McBrayer said she was approached by the owners of Brook Highland Shopping Plaza to see if she would move her business there. They were looking to change the theme of the stores and target customers who were fixing up their homes.
The space, which was the former Radio Shack location, had been empty for nine years. It turned out to be the perfect fit for Space Cadets. McBrayer saw that the store already had her color scheme of red, black and gray.
The lease was signed in April, and what was supposed to be a four-week process turned into a six-month project, with McBrayer and her team having to do the majority of the build-out themselves.
One of the things that McBrayer said has helped her is her tremendous staff. She said she has been very blessed with the people God has sent her and that it’s been a huge blessing to have them. Her staff has grown to five full-time and four part-time employees.
“Once the additional staff was in place, business started exploding.” she said. “It’s a good problem to have. We had our busiest months ever over the summer.”
McBrayer has always wanted to expand the retail side of the business, and with the almost doubled space in the new location, 40 vendors are now featured. Product lines include Made Smart, which is female-owned and features a makeup organizing line, bathroom storage, pantry storage and more. Joseph Joseph specializes in nesting bowls and new innovative ways to store silverware. Two Lumps of Sugar makes tote bags and casserole dishes. The store also stocks Sterilite, which makes plastic bins and totes.
“What we can do now is offer so much more,” McBrayer said. “There’s literally nothing we can’t find a solution for a situation.”
When Space Cadets first began, it was all about organizing, but now offer closet design and installation. For closets, they offer five product lines, something for every budget. From that evolved adding all the gadgets and accessories that go with it. Space Cadets can also work with whatever units customers already have.
“I realized that if I could find a way to purchase directly from vendors and not box stores, I could save my clients money,” she said. “It has always been my goal to do this as inexpensively and cost effective as possible.”
McBrayer said they can do as little or as much for their clients as they need, from cleaning out kitchen cabinets and organizing to bringing in products to better organize a space, to ripping out an existing system and installing a new one.
“What really defines us is the unique have opportunity we have to work at any level for a client,” McBrayer said.
They have an introductory offer where they will come for three hours in any space and do as much as they can for $135. McBrayer said she started this option because many people don’t understand what organizers really do. Other packages are available in blocks of hours. They also work with relocations and organizing a house before it goes on the market.
“This business is a passion for me, because I’ve been there and know what it feels like [to be unorganized],” she said. “That’s what I love. Doing this is not a job for me, it’s a beautiful thing and I get to make a living doing it.”
For information, visit spacecadetsorganizing.com.
