It’s no secret that we find and sell old things. It’s what we do.

Our job is to source it, haul it, clean it, polish it, research it, describe it and merchandise it so our customers see how amazing “IT” really is!

And it’s the “IT” that we want to talk about.

So is IT just . . .

A primitive cabinet constructed out of hand sawn scraps of bead-board with square nails and rabbet joinery?

-- OR --

is IT . . .

Evidence of the skill, thrift, ingenuity and circumstance at work in the 1930s?

The answer depends on how you see things.

Providing a criteria of fifty-five years old, all of the cateyegirls now qualify for a senior discount – we’re all on the other side of youthful exuberance! All of which means that for us to be cashing in on senior discounts in 2017 our parents entered the world in the 1920s, our grandparents in the late – 1800s to early 1900s.

So when we look at something hand-made -- quilt, cabinet, table, doily, lace -- and old enough that our grandparents could have made it in their youth we see a lot of past tense verbs at work.

Our grandmothers sewed, crotched, darned, mended, knitted, embroidered, quilted.

Our grandfathers designed, built, maintained, repaired, tinkered, remodeled, recycled.

Lots of work in those last two sentences! Lots of hard work with hand tools employed in dim lighting!

So NO, it’s not just an old bead-board cabinet with some square nails holding it together.

IT . . . is . . .

Tangible evidence of a person’s life guided by skill, thrift and ingenuity born out of the disparity of the 1930s US economy.

AND

IT . . . is . . .

A lesson in history, gratitude, humility and perspective . . .

Because, after all . . . We're all just a few generations removed from . . .

Living in a sod house with a dirt floor tilling a Dust Bowl for nourishment

-- OR --

Toiling 9 hours a day, six days a week in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and living in the squalor of 1911 inner-city tenement housing.

 

So the question goes something like, "What's next?"

Our short and rhetorical and rather snarky answer -- "What difference does it make?"

The "what's next" question stems from trends over the past couple of decades -- vintage decorating styles that gained enough traction in the market that demand exceeded product availability so China satisfied demand.

"Shabby Chic," "French Country," and "Industrial Nouveau" decorating styles ended up on the pages of vintage décor magazines and in shipping containers steaming toward the shelves of Target, Hobby Lobby and Restoration Hardware to satisfy customers after a vintage "look."

We aren't trendsetters and unlike Thelma and Louise we find the edge, the "what's next," troublesome.

We live with old things that tell stories and invoke memories about time and people.

"My grandfather rescued that rocking chair from under a porch in about 1910.  He made it usable again.  Always referred to as "Grampa's rocking chair" that rescued rocking chair lived in my grandfather's living room, my parents' living room and now in my living room.  A resolute professional reupholstered it for me in 1998.  She insisted on a double welt and re-stuffing it with the original horse hair.  I've decorated two living rooms around that chair.  In my world, if it doesn't go with Grampa's rocking chair it doesn't need to live here."

"That was my grandmother's basket.  It's a Salish basket from the late-1800s.  She used it to hold wooden blocks, the ones I played with as a little munchkin are still inside."

"In the 1930s, my grandmother hand-stitched the top of that Double Wedding Ring quilt.  It lived in my mother's cedar chest for sixty-plus years before being quilted and finished by a complete stranger she met on a tour bus."

"My grandmother gave my mother the Cookie Truck on my kitchen counter when she was newly-wed.  The lid broke and was hastily glued back together when I was the Cookie Monster."

So "What's next?"

Who cares?  The way we see it . . .

Anyone who really cares about what's trending wants to sell you:

A magazine.

Something manufactured in China to resemble something old that lacks authenticity and the build quality of the original it was modeled on.

OR

Some chalk paint.

Oooohhh . . . snnnaarrrkay?

Drilling down to hone a "look" misses the point of vintage décor.

OKaaaaayyy?  So what is the point?

To create a space that summons . . .

Our memories,

Our history,

Our traditions,

Our stories,

AND

Our own singularly unique decorating style inspired by something that once lived in . . .

In our grandfather's living room,

In our great-grandmother's china closet,

In our mother's cedar chest,

In our mind's-eye-childhood-black-and-white-snapshot of us reaching into the Cookie Truck,

IS the point of vintage décor!

ps. Your singularly unique decorating style . . .  it doesn't need a catchy, marketable name . . . it already has one.  It's called "home."