For a couple years I had noticed a little sign near Whisenant Drive, alongside Highway 47, which read Flower Cabin.

Now, there’s a large, brightly-colored sign marking the spot.

I recently decided to check it out and was delighted with what I found. Nestled among spreading hardwood trees and shrubs sat a homey, yet elegant cabin. Once home to family members of owners Terry Ritchie and daughter Laura Chambless, it is now a unique antique and gift shop.

“Laura and I both had a lot of antiques,” said Ritchie. “And after my son moved out of the cabin, we began piling some of them in here.”

Then one day the duo decided to arrange their collection and start an antique business.

Some of the pieces belonged to her grandmother, Ritchie said, but her sons are not interested in them and her daughter Laura has plenty of her own.

The mother/daughter team also picks up antiques at a market in Atlanta. Their clay “prayer crosses,” carrying a Bible verse on each one, are made by two local women.

Chambless said as a military family they lived all over the United States and in several foreign countries.

“The necessity to set up a home quickly developed a streak of creativity [in her mother],” Chambless said.

She “always pulled in touches” from their current locale “and made a home that was homey and quite elegant.”

Some of the Flower Cabin’s offerings are from these various locales. Chambless evidently has a streak of creativity like her mother’s. After the Ritchie family settled into Chelsea several years ago, the mother and daughter found outlets for their creativity in flower arranging and painting. They paint all the pictures displayed and sold in their shop.

They had started a free, silk flower business in the Chambless living room around 13 years ago, said Ritchie. That became expensive, so they opened a paying business.

The Flower Cabin, located at 10630 Chelsea Road, is open Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and on Wednesdays by appointment. You may call 908-8280, or drop by and visit. Sit in a comfortable rocker among the cabin’s “jewels,” as one visitor called them or sit outside in the serenity of the miniature garden.