Bryan and Ashley Burmeister found a place for their new home décor store in Montgomery City.

It had to take them a year to find it.

The Burmeisters are opening a store on 120 W. 2nd Street that restores old furniture and sells home goods. It is called Fox and Fern Furnishings and will open for business at 9 a.m. today.

“We have been doing it at our home in the basement,” Bryan said. “We needed a place to be able to show this stuff instead of getting away from constantly selling in the Facebook marketplace and whatnot and a place to get it out of the house. It was a little overwhelming at the house with all of this furniture everywhere.”

The Burmeisters live in Wentzville. They moved there from the northern Indiana area in 2018. Bryan and Ashley, who have been married for 19 years, have five children and another one on the way.

“We enjoy the area,” said Bryan, who works at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Berkeley. “We really like the people. We don’t have any family around here, but we enjoy it.”

Bryan said he and his wife wanted to move their store to an old building in a small town. They once considered having it at St. Charles, but they found out the area was too expensive.

So they turned to Montgomery City.

“We kept on looking and looking,” Bryan said. “We ended up stumbling across this building.”

Bryan said he and Ashley have gotten plenty of feedback from community residents since they started working on the new store months ago.

“It’s been amazing with the amount of support from the community,” Bryan said. “If we’re outside working, people constantly stop and tell us thank you for coming to the community, starting a business in the community and making the building look much better. It’s making the city look better. It’s unbelievable.”

Ashley said the store’s mission is to attract residents from all over mid-Missouri.

“We really like to bring a lot more people and a lot more foot traffic, not just people from Montgomery, but surrounding cities,” Ashley said.

Fox and Fern Furnishings will be located on the same street as other businesses such as BelleEve Boutique, Central Barber Shop, Mani’s by Madi and the New Montgomery Florist.

“Us fixing this building up and opening this store and some of the other stuff is continuing to bring life back to this area of the city,” Bryan said. “Our goal is really to be part of the community. We really want to be part of the community, help folks and sell something that’s useful for folks around the area. Hopefully, we can start to help as more and more people will continue to come in.”

Having the Fox and Fern Furnishings sign light up during nighttime is one of the best features in the building.

“We built that sign,” Bryan said. “It’s all painted. I think it turned out very well. The sign along with the lights makes it look really attractive at night. I think it’s a good look. It’s not super modern, but it looks a little more of the age with some of the lights.”

The store will open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Monday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.