Repurposing isn't just a hobby for Kathie Armstrong. It's her new life.

Before she moved from Fort Francis, Ontario, to the Twin Cities to wed Jeff Morlock, she never set foot in a thrift store. Now, circumstances have changed.

"She's got an eye for stuff," said Morlock.

These days, the repurposing guru visits thrift stores, garage sales and antique shops almost weekly, searching for furniture and other items she can give new life and sell at Kathie's Finds near Maple Plain.

Even the store itself has been repurposed. The couple purchased the Lyndale Creamery in 2007 at auction. Built in 1894, the creamery also had housed a feed store and a woodcarver's shop over the last century. It now serves as their home, business and workspace.

Armstrong, 53, finds, salvages and fixes furniture and other eye-catching accessories, while also developing recipes, new and old, for customers to enjoy.

As her sidekick, Morlock works as a computer programmer during the day and, after hours, moves and refinishes furniture and serves as taste-tester for Armstrong's baked goods.

"I absolutely couldn't do this without him," she said of Morlock, her husband of nine years.

Rethinking home

The creamery wasn't always livable. In its first year, it only had water and a working toilet.

Through a process of finding this and that, they were able to install a fireplace before the first deep freeze. Still, their generator died that winter, forcing the couple out for a few days.

Now the residential area of the building is eclectic yet homey.

Armstrong's childhood chandelier is affixed to salvaged corrugated metal from the mayor's yard. The metal covers the ceiling in the back room and the fireplace area in the main living space.

The kitchen consists of a Craigslist countertop, commercial oven and restaurant refrigerator.

Armstrong's knack for collecting and reselling has built business. While Kathie's Finds is located along a quiet stretch of County Road 6, her sales climbed 66 percent last year.

While her talent for repurposing furniture is obvious, Armstrong also has branched into collecting odds and ends for personalized gift baskets.

After asking seven to 10 questions, Armstrong says she can read a customer's interests and assemble a basket filled with knickknacks, stationary, candles, bath-and-body items and treats that suit the recipient. She ships them anywhere.

Her goal: "I fill them with something that can be used."

Reinventing baking

Rayshele Kamke stopped in on her way from Hudson, Wis., to visit a friend in Watertown, 10 miles west of Maple Plain. She had to get one of Kathie's specialities: Caramel corn.

"This doesn't taste like mine," she said, and she even confessed that Armstrong's recipe beats her grandmother's.

Armstrong has been perfecting recipes passed down from her mother. Known locally for her shortbread cookies, pecan logs and caramel corn, she's developing four dry mixes for patrons to make on their own.

Eventually, Armstrong hopes to expand the kitchen where she whips up her new creations and old favorites to have enough space for at least eight guests to visit and look on while she works.

Next month, the State Fair

This year Armstrong's shortbread cookies and caramel corn will be featured at the honey booth in the Agriculture and Horticulture Building during the State Fair. With honey added into the recipe, her goodies will change a bit, but the favorites in her shop will stay the same.

Armstrong left behind her life in Canada for something new.

"It's like I got parachuted in," she says.

She admits it's a life she would never have chosen for herself, yet it's better than she could have dreamed.

"My whole life I've been working toward this, and I didn't know it," she said.

Joy E. Petersen is a Minneapolis freelance writer.