Spot the Shop: Never Ending Finds brings family antiques to Swannanoa

For Tamara “Deana” Lytle, “the universe is always providing.”

That’s how she describes the work she does at her antique store, Never Ending Finds in Swannanoa.

“This shop kind of started literally on a hope and a dream and a prayer,” Lytle said. “My mom has been collecting vintage and antiques for over 50 years.”

Lytle’s family has been on the property that her parents live on for more than a century. Some of the things her mother collects are family heirlooms while others she has picked up along the way.

A former marketing executive, Lytle started going through her mother’s things, keeping the family heirlooms and sorting through the rest to potentially be sold. She started an Etsy store in 2018 but said she did not have the time to fully devote to maintaining and selling her online inventory.

When Lytle lost her job, she said she knew it was time to put more into her business.

“The universe just kept pushing me in the direction of trying to open a store,” Lytle said. “This unit was available and I said, ‘OK, let’s do it,’ and opened the day after Thanksgiving.”

While she still operates the Etsy store, Lytle and Never Ending Finds is coming up on six months in their physical retail space at 2077 U.S. 70 Unit C in Swannanoa.

She said she sells more higher end things on Etsy, but her store is filled with antiques that are sourced in several different ways.

Lytle said about 40% of the store's goods comes from her mother’s collection while she finds other items herself, often at auctions. She also accepts donations. The store also sells arts and jewelry from local residents. Lytle said she researches everything in her shop.

When it comes to pricing, she said she takes into account the work she had to put into acquiring the item, as well as what similar items have sold for elsewhere.

Lytle said her favorite part of owning the store is meeting the people who come in.

“I like the people,” Lytle said. “Selling is always part of making money, but the people that I meet is probably the best part of it and hearing the stories. I just meet cool people every day.”

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She said she is a small business owner doing everything herself, and sometimes that can be challenging. Lytle pointed toward marketing the business and getting the word out about it as something she is working at every day. Whether it’s putting a sign on the door or making social media posts, she said she makes an effort every day.

Looking ahead, Lytle said she wants to expand to a bigger location because she said she is quickly growing out of her current store. She also wants to hire at least one person so she can spend more time with her family, as well as continue to host a space for local artists to sell their wares.

“To be able to have a bigger space, to hire people and to be able to give back to the community so that I can have a place for artists to showcase their work, especially here locally,” Lytle said. “This is my home. This where I grew up. This is where I was born and raised.”

While she is looking to grow the business, Lytle said the biggest success she has had so far is simply opening the doors to her store.

“You wake up and you have these dreams that you aspire to do, but you never really take the plunge to do them because you always have some sort of fear or something holding you back,” Lytle said. “To just be able to push all that aside and just focus on opening and getting the doors open was probably the biggest success.”