VIDALIA — For nine years, four letters have been the foundation of the Knapp family business.

Those four letters — RRUS — represent Ricky, Rikki, Una and Steven and became the namesake for Una Knapp’s boutique on Carter Street in Vidalia that recently reopened in a newly rebuilt building.

“We intended just to add on,” Una said. “As they tore into everything, it was just in poor, poor condition, so they ended up tearing off the front of the store.”

Before embarking on the project, Una said she considered relocating the store.

“We knew it was as cheap or cheaper to build new rather than remodel,” she said. “We looked at other locations and talked very seriously about purchasing a new place. But this location is at the heart of the town at one of the busiest intersections, and we just couldn’t give that up. We feel like we have one of the best locations in town.”

Una and her family worked with architect Amelia Salmon to rebuild the front of the store from the foundation up and renovate the rest of the building.

While the store needed a facelift, Una said she was also in need of more space to display merchandise.

“My ceilings in some places were not even eight feet tall, so we were limited on how we could display merchandise and apparel.”

Now, the ceilings are 12 feet tall, and the store feels “tens time bigger,” Una said, because of windows in the store and glass across the front.

“I would say I have double the space in volume of merchandise we can display,” she said.

Because of the new space, RRUS & Company has been able to expand its offerings and include many items the store included in its merchandise when it first opened.

“When we first started, I primarily had gifts and jewelry and a little bit of apparel,” she said. “Then apparel was the best-seller, and I realized that in order to bring in more apparel, I would have to scale back gifts and jewelry.”

The store now has linens, pillows, candles, paper goods and more gift items, as well as more jewelry.

RRUS now offers a more enjoyable experience for its customers, Una said, which started with creating a warm and inviting atmosphere.

That was a family effort, Una said.

Una’s husband, Ricky, built the store racks, and her daughter, Rikki, who owns a boutique out of town, decorated and designed the store.

“She really just has a talent for creating a vision for a store,” Una said. “I can look at a picture and say, ‘OK, this is what I want you to do,’ but Rikki can really see all that in her head. She can look at an empty space and really know how to put it all together.”

Also important to Una was furnishing the store with reused, locally handmade materials. Furnishings made of old cyprus were handmade in Vidalia, and Una refurbished an antique table she found in Natchez, as well as used furnishings from the former store.

“I really like that everything came from here or was handmade and has a story behind it,” she said.

RRUS’s story, Una says, has been one made by the support of her family and community.

“All of my local customers have been so good to me in these nine years,” she said. “I want them to feel a sense of ownership in this building. It’s their town and their community. I want them to be proud.

“And my family, I just couldn’t have done it without them. Those four letters hanging on the front of the store, those are for us … because we are all in this together.”