EVERETT — Johanna Paige Hilde bought her dream home in Everett with a view to die for, but the bathroom came with no actual counter space.
“What do you do with a pedestal sink and a toilet?” Paige Hilde asked. “Where do you put your coffee? Your contacts? Nowhere. I sat in my little tiny bathroom, and I tried to figure it out and figure it out.”
For weeks, she found herself in a weird place. She was in the bathroom, holding a coffee mug as she looked at a picture above her toilet in the bathroom, thinking to herself, “If only the frame could come down, kind of like a Murphy bed. Then it could become a counter top.”
And that’s when it came to her — why not make a picture frame that opens and features extra cabinet space? The Everett School District physical education teacher sketched out the idea, worked on it and then received a patent.
She worked with a factory in Asia to start production for her invention, Flip Frame. Just as the Flip Frame was launching, she received a whopping amount of free publicity.
Steve Greenberg, who wrote the book “Gadget Nation,” selected Flip Frames as a product he talked about on the “Today” show Feb. 23.
“It’s scary, doing this at this point in my life,” she said. “I mean, I’m 59. In three years, I could retire from teaching.”
But Paige Hilde hasn’t been showing any fear as she strikes out into the world of marketing.
“We’re being covered all over the place,” she said. Her product, while it initially made its debut as a bathroom item, is kind of a catch-all organization tool.
She’s been pleased with the reception that Flip Frame has received so far. Stories have been written about the product in several blogs and at least 10 magazines. The exposure has been varied — it’s been written about in massage, homeschooling and even RV-centric magazines. But they all have something in common — the need to keep things organized.
She’s been selling the product through Amazon.
Her favorite part about using Amazon has been the ease of it all. “Amazon takes care of the customer service. They take care of the shipping. I receive a notification when one gets shipped out.”
Customers have purchased about 100 Flip Frames a month at $129 per frame. She’s had most of her sales in Florida, but sales are coming from all over, including more than 40 states.
She grew up in Connecticut on a ranch. Her father worked as a comptroller for the furniture industry, but died when she was 6, and then her family moved to Washington at 8.
She went to college on a track scholarship, but went to work managing makeup counters at stores in Manhattan. She moved to Los Angeles and spent time doing makeup for the stars, among other jobs. She received her credentials to be a substitute teacher. When she moved to Washington, she worked in the field full-time.
“I’ve been teaching PE for the last 15 years or so, and it’s been fabulous,” she said. “I run the field day at school with 50 volunteers and 550 students. I coach, and I teach, and I have a kid in college and one who’s graduating at the end of the year.”
Even so, her decision to pursue the Flip Frame didn’t come lightly.
“I have books of drawings and sketches and ideas,” she said. The Flip Frame started as one.
Her friend encouraged her to copyright the idea back in 2008, and she has slowly been building steam for it since then, seeking patents and finding the right price-point for other would-be home refinishers like her.
She wrote the assembly instructions herself.
The Flip Frame sits on a French hinge — a wood frame holder that bolts to the wall in preparation to hold the rest of the piece.
(With apps that turn your phone into a level, it’s not terribly difficult to mount.)
To mount the cabinet, you lift the Flip Frame and slide it on the hinge, after which you bolt it to the wall as well near the bottom, securing it.
The front flips down to a 17 inch by 21 inch counter top.
The edge is magnetically sealed so that with a quick pull, you can change the stock photo — a picture of Skagit Valley tulips — to a personal photo, another print or even a thin mirror.
“You can change it for the seasons as you go, you can put your kid’s artwork in it,” she said.
The frame when it’s flipped down and becomes counter space can hold six pounds of weight. The cabinet space behind the picture can store up to 20 pounds of weight.
She’s made a video for Flip Frames at her website at www.myflipframe.com so people can see her product in action.
“It’s visual. It needs to be seen. It takes 15 seconds to change the picture,” she said. “This is the little product that could.”
More information
To learn more or watch a demonstration video, go to www.myflipframe.com.
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