The Otley family quietly opened a small gift shop at 13041 Frankstown Road in Penn Hills several months ago, taking a chance on a dream many small business owners have.

Customers see quirky, handcrafted local items like wall hangings and birdbaths or candles and mugs on display at Something Different Gift Shop. What they don't see is what happened to the young shop owners after their house caught fire on a snowy, late winter night this year, nearly halting their plan for their own small business.

Nothing appeared different about the evening of March 8, when Vicky Otley settled in to make a poster for her son's third birthday party the next day.

The 28-year-old Penn Hills mother had put birthday boy Ian and 7-month-old twins Alana and Andrew to bed and tossed a load of laundry in the dryer.

Her husband, Tim, also 28, would soon be home from his job at OK Grocery distribution center in Crafton.

She thinks it was a popping sound, then the security alarm going off that alerted her something was wrong. Smoke began pouring out of vents from the basement.

She moved quickly.

Mrs. Otley grabbed her children, all three of them at once, and ran for the front door. Dense smoke and flames stopped them. The same thing happened when she attempted to leave the house from sliding doors at the rear.

She ran for a back bedroom, calling the family pet Doberman, Gracey, to come with them.

Somehow, mother-in-law Peg Otley said, Vicky Otley managed to kick open a small sliding window in the room and get herself and the three children out. The dog would not come.

"I don't know how she did it. I keep telling her she's my hero," Peg Otley, also of Penn Hills, said.

But Gracey hid under a pile of laundry in the room, something she's done before and something that may have saved her life.

The humans were shaken but unhurt. The dog, taken from the house once the flames had been doused, had smoke inhalation. The Otleys' veterinarian said Gracey suffered burns on the inside of her throat but will be OK.

Meanwhile, Mr. Otley, who had stopped at the gift shop after work to check on inventory deliveries, noticed a fire truck racing past. He pulled onto Frankstown Road to go home and, because the trees were bare, he could see his Nash Avenue house on a hill in the distance.

It was surrounded by flashing lights and a spotlight was on it.

He prayed the problem wasn't at his house. Then, when he found out that it was, he prayed that everyone was safe. Mr. Otley said he remembered how he felt when his brother, Harry's, house caught on fire.

To his great relief, his family was safe.

But they lost just about everything. Furniture, appliances, including the dryer officials say started the fire, their clothing and the children's toys were gone. Ian's Thomas the Train toy collection, his favorite, was destroyed.

They moved in with Tim Otley's parents, and work started on the badly damaged house. Mr. Otley said they were insured, so they are rebuilding.

Things started to get crowded with the five members of Tim Otley's family and Gracey joining his mother and father, Harry, at their Jefferson Road house. Then donations started pouring in.

People they knew and people they didn't started mailing them checks, dropping off items at the door or taking up collections at churches and at the grocery where Mr. Otley's worked.

Members of a church congregation in Georgia, where the Otleys had visited family once, pitched in with donations.

The family was touched by the generosity and decided to take this one bright spot and go on with another: They decided to open their shop anyway, in spite of advice from some that they should wait until things settled.

"It was something positive," Vicky Otley said of the shop. The doors opened in early April, and grand opening events were May 4-5.

Mr. Otley said work continues at their house, and there's a chance they'll be back home by mid-July.

The interior is somewhat different and a cathedral ceiling has been added to one part of the main area. A large wall space has resulted from the change, and the Otleys have plans to thank the people who have helped them through their ordeal on that wall.

"We've got the names," Mr. Otley said. They will be listed within a big frame on the wall for visitors to see.

"I'd like to have a picnic this summer," Vicky Otley said, so she can thank people in person and show them the special wall hanging.