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."