Mary Koloski sells solutions for creating, organizing space — New Business

Mary Koloski owns her own business but has the help of a national association to back her up. Her business is named Creating Space; the organization she leans on is Storage Sources Group.

Storage Sources Group, based in New Port Richey, Fla., is an organization of storage experts, organizers, and closet designers. Koloski pays a fee to belong to the organization and must abide by its rules; for that, she said, she pays less for marketing materials and gets the benefit of quantity buying.
She can sell any brand of products she wants and has chosen those in “a reasonable price range,” she said. Products for sale at Creating Space include solutions for organizing closets, kitchens, garages – anything needing an “everything in its place” sense of order.
Creating Space, a 2,000-square-foot store, is located at 8637 W. Franklin in Boise.
Though now an entrepreneur – a longtime goal – Koloski originally built a career in library sciences, then health care. At one point, she even found a way to combine the two, working as a medical search analyst for Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise from 1984-1989. She researched rare diseases and disorders local physicians were not knowledgeable about.
After obtaining a master’s degree, she worked in health care management from 1997 to 2008.
Her desire to help people was fulfilled through her health care career; however, Koloski said, “I missed the fun of creating things.” Her library skills were put to good use in medical research, but, “I like an environment that’s fun,” she said.
She started looking around for entrepreneurial opportunities. She said her cautious nature led her to look a lot and not risk leaping too quickly. She didn’t like the franchise concept because of its steep, upfront financial investment.
She had received a startup loan through the Small Business Administration and needed, in her words, “to get the biggest bang for the buck.”
It was her daughter, Ingri, who got her to consider opening an organizing store. “Originally, I could not fathom this kind of store. I’m a gardening nut, so I looked into starting a nursery,” she said. Persistent encouragement on Ingri’s part led her to visit an organizing store in Denver and, later, to attend trade shows where she was exposed to the organizing products market.
She opened Creating Spaces this past January. The methodical, well-prepared Koloski, after planning everything out pertaining to her startup, said, “I never planned on this economy.”
She had her best month last month, she said, just five months after opening the doors to Creating Space.
The business satisfies her creative side. And it doesn’t hurt her sense of order either. “I consider myself an organized person,” she said, then added, “but I’m not compulsive.”