After eight years in business, Shift Sustainable Home Goods is selling off its inventory and closing its doors at 56 Maine St.

No final date yet has been set, but shelves are getting bare and a familiar tenant is scheduled to take over the space Dec. 1.

It’s not that business has been bad, according to Corie Washow, who owns the store with her husband, Rob Schulz.

“Brunswick has been very supportive and wonderful to us, and we’re very thankful for that,” Washow said. “It’s just that we’re tired. It’s been on our minds for a long time that we wanted to refocus our priorities more on our family, become as selfsustaining as we can by staying ‘off the grid’ and getting by on one income.”

They tried putting the business up for sale in the spring. But, in a quandary similar to that faced by former Maine Street neighbors David Girardin and John Simonsen whose Pennell’s clothing store also recently closed, finding a suitable successor proved elusive.

“We couldn’t quite find the right buyer,” Washow said. “But it’s actually been kind of nice to go out this way instead, because we’ve gotten to see everybody who’s helped to make this such fun.”

Schulz and Washow live in Durham; he recently started teaching school in West Bath while she and two part-time employees have minded the store.

Washow said she is grateful to all of the friends they’ve made, and the customers who have patronized the store since she and Shulz bought the business in 2011 from originator Fred Horch.

“We’re not leaving the area,” she said, her hands busy knitting as if on autopilot while she spoke. “I’m just going to do all of the things that I talk about doing while I’m here all day.”

Among the things on her list are making more of their own clothes, and growing or raising as much of their own food as possible.

Richard Nemrow, who owns the building, said he was disappointed to see Shift leave.

“They’ve been very good tenants, and it’s a shame that they’re moving out because they figured out how to make the operation pay,” Nemrow said. “They weren’t losing money. But I think after a few years of running it, they just decided that they weren’t cut out to be retailers.”

The closure also is progressing a little more quickly than Schulz and Washow planned because new tenants Nels and Shelby Omdal, who own the nearby Frosty’s Donuts LLC, are planning to revamp the space for a “children oriented” use.

While the exact use has not yet been disclosed — mostly because the Omdals haven’t yet figured out what to name it — it will not be another restaurant or salon, Nemrow added.

“They’re taking on another line of business that has nothing to do with food,” he said. “It will be retail oriented, but more or less pointed toward children’s use.”

The storefront will require some cosmetic renovation, but nothing extensive, Nemrow added.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com