A Case for Vintage
I absolutely love turning to vintage and second-hand markets for all manner of items. From art to décor to lighting to furniture, I get excited about a great new (old) find. My love of vintage isn’t just about finding beautiful things. In addition to highlighting some vintage items for my One Room Challenge space, I’ll be going into the benefits of utilizing vintage and how to incorporate it into your own home in a way that feels right for you and your lifestyle, even if you love a good trend!
Let’s talk practicality. There are MAJOR delays right now in the world of interiors. Furniture lead times look more like a 5-year-plan than a purchasing choice these days. There’s a shortage of foam. There’s a shortage of lumber. There’s a shortage of labor. There’s a shortage of trucks to offload the ships carrying a backlog of all this backordered stuff. So when you look for vintage furniture, lighting, and décor, it’s nice to know that it’s available RIGHT NOW. It exists already, and can be picked up or shipped or delivered to you. It’s one less worry when you’re on a deadline, and the One Room Challenge is on quite a tight schedule.
That said, it pays to be patient when searching for the right piece. With possibilities at local thrift stores, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity Restore, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace, there are new items cropping up every day. I know when I’m feeling impatient about a find because I start messaging my friends asking, “what do you think about this one?!” When I’m not trusting my own judgement and I’m having my doubts, it’s generally not the right piece for me. I have a rule-of-thumb when finding pieces. “Do I love it?” If I don’t love it, I don’t buy it.
Speaking of love, my heart stopped when I saw this antique Tiger Oak desk. I’ve been getting back into writing, and part of changing the layout of my bedroom was to create a space to be able to sit and reflect and write. I had been looking for a secretary desk to try to keep the mess of paper at bay, but most of what I was finding looked too boxy or formal, or it just wasn’t exciting me. This desk has the sweetest profile that’s going to help bring a playful element to the space.
Loving this desk also made me pause and be honest with myself about my needs. Planning a piece of furniture around letting myself be a mess (secretary desk) was never a good plan. Plus with my LOW ceiling heights, this shorter piece is a much better scale for my space. I’m a nervous haggler when I find something that I love, but I ended up offering $15 less than this was listed on Facebook Marketplace and purchased it for $60. I cleaned her up with a little oil soap, and that was all she needed.
Purchasing ethics is a huge draw for me when it comes to buying vintage. A disturbing number of new items are manufactured each year, and there is so much out there that has so much life still left in it. We are in a climate emergency, and the current pace of production and consumption cannot be sustained if we want to keep living on this earth. Every purchase of every new item comes back to companies as a data point, which signals to them that even MORE new items need to be made and sold. When you choose to buy second-hand, you take away those signals. And from a sustainability standpoint, older items are often better constructed and more durable, which means they’ll keep being functional pieces for generations. They can also hold up to repairs. Don’t get me wrong, I love IKEA for certain things. In fact, I’m using some of their window treatments for my One Room Challenge space. But there’s no such thing as an heirloom MALM desk, which by the way costs more than twice what my vintage beauty cost me.
Another area of ethical concern for me is with plastics. Acrylic items have their benefits design-wise, but I do not feel good about bringing more virgin plastics into my life. Any plastic item I bring into my home will be on the planet FOREVER. So in considering the life cycle of my purchasing footprint, I always try to see if I can find vintage solutions to areas of design that I feel would benefit from an acrylic moment. For this project, I purchased used (not vintage) acrylic curtain rods because I’m wanting those horizontal lines to disappear at my vertical striped curtains. For the Spring ORC I purchased a vintage acrylic light fixture, and Frida is an absolute stunner (shout out to my cousin Amanda for naming her). You’ll all be thrilled to know that our girl Frida turned out to be a designer fixture (how could she not be when she throws such stunning shade?!), and once armed with the right search terms I was able to locate another vintage fixture by this designer for my bedroom at a great price. It’s a smaller fixture (great for my low ceilings) and has clear acrylic where Frida’s is gray. I love that I have these sister fixtures now, each one different and carrying a whole different mood that suits the spaces they’re in. You’ll have to help me name my new lighting love over on Instagram.
Do you ever worry that incorporating vintage items will make your home look “dated?” Have no fear. You can incorporate vintage without making you feel like you’re in a 90s beach motel. Oh wait, that’s back in style? There’s something to be said for the fact that things tend to come back around. I wouldn’t recommend buying a fully matching bedroom set from the 60s, plus vintage 60s lighting, some 60s rugs and 60s art. But I also wouldn’t recommend fully jumping into any new decorating style either. If you mix and match pieces and keep in mind what can work with what you already have, you can create a richly layered look that blends old and new. Sometimes this means passing on décor trends, but if that’s your cup of tea it doesn’t mean you have to miss out! We’re seeing a resurgence of 80s and 90s styles in furniture and décor right now, which were a reinterpretation of Art Deco from the 1920s through the 1940s. So if you’re loving that look right now, see what pieces from those periods that you can incorporate into your spaces. Instead of a new dresser modeled off of an 80s interpretation of a 40s dresser, try looking for an Art Deco dresser from the 40s! You’d be surprised what you can find for a fraction of the cost of that new dresser that won’t actually get delivered until Fall of 2022.
When you mix pieces from different eras, there are many ways to ensure that these pieces work well with one another. Do they have similar lines? Or even similar component shapes? Does it feature circles? Curves? Hard lines? What about materials and patterns and scale? In this space I’m mixing this antique desk with modern elements AND with a 40s waterfall makeover project (that’s a post all on its own). The waterfall style is not the same as the style of this desk, but the detailing at the top here features a curve too. And the wood grain patterning is not the same, but the scales of the two work well together. When in doubt, try asking yourself, “Do I love it, and does it suit me?” I have found that if I love it, I can find a way to make it work.
To that end, I try not to worry my little head about terms like “dated.” A magazine doesn’t get to tell you what’s “out” and what’s “in.” If you love it, it’s in. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you can’t stay comfortable in your own space. Besides, if you’ve waited long enough your 80s time capsule is back in fashion and all of your patience has paid off! Only partly kidding there. Just live with what you love.
These vintage components will contribute to a wall art moment
And peep the gorgeous texture of my new (to me) light fixture!
I have about a million more things to say about vintage, so I’ll be following up with a second post on Sunday (who even am I?) to talk about vintage sourcing, vintage pricing, and utilizing versatile vintage pieces for seasonal décor instead of hitting up that certain “bargain” section at the front of major stores.
Until then, I’d love to hear about your favorite ever vintage pieces! Mine is actually an heirloom. It’s a painting that my grandmother had an artist friend paint in 1970 – a reproduction of Chagall’s “I and The Village” that replaced all the red tones with oranges to match her orange vinyl sofa. The sofa is long gone, but I cherish this painting. A vintage bucket list item for me is an orange sofa or chair to pair it with one day.
So what are your vintage favorites? Do you have a vintage bucket list? Tell me in the comments!
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