Shop Around: Former jewelry store now home to new real estate firm

When Graeme Moore and Justin Drafts founded The Moore Company real estate firm in Columbia in mid September 2015, the two worked out of Moore's home.

Last week, the two agents — since joined by additional agents Andrea Reynolds and Paige Edwards along with three support staffers — moved into some new digs at 2931 Devine St.

For nearly three decades, that space was home to Gudmundson & Buyck Jewelers which opened in Columbia in 1958 and closed shop last November. With the help of local architectural firm 1x1 Design and Kirk Construction, Moore and his team transformed and revitalized the 2,300-square-foot space.

"It's just a really vibrant, youthful, energetic space," said Moore, who graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2006 and previously worked with his father's real estate company in Orangeburg. "It's really a cool renovation with lots of reclaimed materials from surrounding neighborhoods. Our conference table, for example, has a base welded by a local welder with an old piece of a bowling alley as its top. Some of the walls are covered with old lap siding from a 1920s Shandon bungalow. A big chunk of the wall covering is old heart pine that came out of a now-defunct saw mill that closed as a result of the recession."

The location was a prime factor in selection of the space, as well, Moore said.

"You can't beat the visibility there in that stretch of Devine," he said. "It's just the perfect place to be right now."

This story was originally published April 18, 2016 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Shop Around: Former jewelry store now home to new real estate firm."