Magnifying my consignment

In the spirit of meeting my "300 words a day" goal, I am posting again about my furniture. It may be that this blog just becomes a place where I talk about all of the things that Amy and I purchase at consignment shops. You guys are cool with that, right? Good. I thought so. We're all friends here.

I blogged about this once before and the more we shop in antique stores and vintage shops, the more I love it. It just seems like you find cooler stuff, the price is usually lower, and you can feel some sort of self-righteousness that your are repurposing items that already exist instead of increasing your carbon footprint or something. And once we started looking, we found there are vintage shops everywhere. Seriously. Even Spanish Fork has one. So that is your assignment this week. You guys don't mind if I start giving weekly assignments, do you? Good.

Our kids broke the lamp in the loft. And what is more annoying than spending money to replace things your kids broke (i.e. the video camera they broke a couple of weeks ago trying to smash a spider?) But then we heard Amy's grandma had a lamp in her basement she wasn't using, so we went and got this treasure..

Its a tension lamp, which means it is spring loaded and you wedge it between the floor and the ceiling. Originally the room we were going to put it in had too high of a ceiling for it to work. So we bought that little light box to put underneath the lamp. Then we decided we liked the lamp better in this room so we just put some stuff on the light box.

Here is the lamp all lit up and a closeup of the light box, which had a weird orange vase on it that we found at a vintage store. Isn't she grand?

And as long as we were buying a light box, and a vase and a pair of boots for Amy (not pictured) we decided we needed to spruce up the kitchen, so we got this super awesome bread box and little tin bucket utensil holder thing.

Shabby chic? Perhaps. But it looks grand with the yellow owl butter dish. 

So that's all I got. No profound statement on the meaning of finding old things and making them new. No commentary about illuminating our homes and our lives with things from the past. Just some more pictures of furniture I like. This 300 words thing could get pretty boring pretty quick. Someone get me a book deal!

On Consignment

I really do plan on posting a photo tour of the new house soon. We have worked really hard over the last couple of weeks to get everything out of boxes and looking good around the house. We painted the kitchen cabinets an apple green and have a couple more projects to do before we are totally done. All in all, I love this house and I am happy that we get to live her forever. We call it La Settanta. It's Italian for "The Seventy." The house was built in 1968 (I think) and has a great 70s modern vibe. Mark my words; Seventies architecture and design: In. Mid-Century Modern: So five minutes ago. (That's totally not true, I am sure. I will always love mid-century modern. But we want to be cutting edge.)

When we moved in we knew we were going to need to get some new furniture pieces. La Settanta is a little bigger than our Portland home. But we wanted pieces that made sense in the house, and somehow the $1999 HDTV TV, sofa, love seat, coffee table combo from RC Wiley didn't seem to be the vibe we were going for. So Amy started scouring KSL.com. local used-furniture stores and consignment shops. It was like a revelation.

You know when you are watching Secrets of a Stylist and you see some super awesome chair that Emily got and it says she paid $125 for it and you don't understand how that is possible? Well, it is all about used furniture stores, baby. They vary greatly in quality. Some look like junk heaps and you really have to dig. Others are thoughtfully curated, well merchandised and you want to buy everything in the store. There is something about a piece that you know has been around for 50 years and is still in good shape. It just seems to have more gravitas than the particle board desk from ikea (which I also own and love.) You didn't know we were going to be talking about furniture gravitas today, did you?

Our favorite shop is the The Old Flamingo. It is owned by a group of artists/ furniture restorers. They buy from estate sales and either refinish the furniture or sell it as is. Everything is well done and Amy and I want to spend every spare penny we have there. If you are in the Millcreek area, it is worth a visit.

I am planning a more thorough home tour on the blog soon, but until then, here are some favorite pieces we have gotten since moving in.

This vase/bowl is from the OF. I think it was $13. I love it. The X is from Anthropoligie and the red screen is from TJ Maxx. (painted red to match the other furniture.)

Our dining space is small so we wanted a bench to go against the wall instead of chairs. The ladies at the OF custom painted this for us to match the curtains in the kitchen. The seat is all leather (or vinyl? Who knows) Super comfortable and the kids love it.

We got this baby grand at an antique store for $11!! Just kidding - it is from a real piano store. But the green rocker, the spindly coffee table and the leather sling chair are all from antique stores. The green rocker is super creaky and comfortable. I think the coffee table is about the most beautiful piece in the house. If you look closely you can see the dovetail detail on the top. The legs and support pieces underneath are all gracefully curved. I love it. 

This is a close up of the leather sling chair. Real leather. I think it was in an office somewhere. 

I am sitting in this chair right now as I am writing this. Both these pieces are from the OF. The chair is wool and mid-century and swivels and is the greatest red-orange color. The ottoman is white leather (or vinyl. Who knows/cares) with gold legs. What's not to love! (The ghost pillow is from Target. 75% off post Halloween sale.)

In a way I am kind of sad we are done decorating. There is no need to buy more big items from our friends at the Old Flamingo. I am sure we will continue to go and get accessories and additional pieces here or there. If you have never been to these kinds of stores before, check one out.