Preliminary Furnishing: Phase One
Now that I’ve filled you in on how our house came to be our house, I wanted to share my favorite part of the process so far!
Of course, we had to sort out some gruesome plumbing issues and dispose of about 900 spider carcasses. You can imagine, while necessary, these items weren’t my favorite on the agenda.
A House isn’t a Home without a naughty bobtail kitten to eat your houseplants!
As soon as we got the green light from the floor guy to come inside the house, I started making the empty shell a home that would reflect our styles and tastes. I made a list of what each room needed and started on Operation Acquisition for the more important items.
This is a well-planned operation with very specific steps: Phase One is the Reduce/Re-use phase. Phase Two is the Recycle phase. And Phase Three is where you actually buy the odds and ends that you can't feasibly source any other way.
Today's post highlights some major wins from Phase One in the reduce/reuse segment.
The reducing segment is finding out what we already have that can be made usable for the time being. Our toilet, for example, was a nightmare but nothing some elbow grease couldn't fix. You'll also read about some appliances we could either get by with or reuse. The spice comes from the “Reuse” segment.
Another way to put it is that Phase One is the use of a little spit n shine and the mental sweeping of my family members’ garages and basements.
Yep, you read that right. Shameless, simply shameless!
What do these lovely people have sitting around that they want to part with that we could use? This step has proven to be extremely successful in furnishing all the houses my mom and I have lived in since I was born.
You see, I come from two families of farmers: all these people have barns and sheds and basements that accumulate generations of random stuff. It helps that a handful are "collectors." The good thing for me is that my taste lines up with the perfect era of stuff that's mostly sitting around half-forgotten.
Our deco couch and chair belonged to my dad’s maternal great-grandmother in the 1920s. His grandma kept them covered in a side parlor and only let people sit on them once a year, so I hardly need to note that they are in excellent condition.
My favorite thing in our house is our 1939 refrigerator. When I was a little girl my great-grandma had the coolest retro fridge and I grew up wanting to have one just like it one day. I'd even started a tab in our budget to start saving for one of those fancy new ones that *look* old.
One of my mental sweeps led me to look at an old dresser in my mom’s paternal grandmother’s barn. Her name was Dorothy, and you’ll want to remember her because even though she’s been gone for almost 20 years, she has been a central figure in my aesthetic choices. You’ll be reading lots about Dorothy in paragraphs and posts to come.
The dresser turned out to be a bust, but behind it was a gleaming white ray of a retro refrigerator! It wasn't just like the fridge I wanted. It WAS the exact fridge I wanted that I assumed would be long gone! I was already scheming to put my retro fridge fund towards hiring someone to re-gut it, but fate had other ideas.
“Well before you call the repairman, let’s just try plugging it in.” My grandma said. Plug it in we did and chill it did! No repairs were necessary. The next day my grandpa, my workout-obsessed cousin, and a couple of his buddies had the thing plugged in and chillin’ away in our kitchen!
The oven that came with the house isn’t new by any means, but it clearly hasn’t been used much and is in great condition. Eventually, we’ll swap it out for a retro gas stove, but we cannot see any reason to throw out a perfectly good stove just yet. The hood, however, had to go. It wasn’t vented or anything so wasn’t doing enough work to earn its keep. We tossed the hood, moved the oven into a less visually prominent place, and nestled the retro fridge into the perfect little space the cabinets had left for the oven and hood.
It's now the focal point of my kitchen!
Our great uncle Glenn, who’s been helping us with handy projects, did his own mental sweep to recall that he had a perfect kitchen light in his barn that we could replace our ugly florescent shop lights with.
A mental sweep from several moves back had already brought my mom’s paternal great uncle’s Japanese jade & abalone screen into my possession. It had been tucked away in my grandma’s basement, and when I was little I would sneak downstairs to go peek at it. It's black with scenes of beautiful women in flowing kimono playing instruments and crossing bubbling brooks. There are clouds and birds and fishes all swirling as if in motion. My uncle was apparently "storing it" in her basement until he had a spot for it, but by the time I was grown and had my place he still hadn't found a use for it and was happy to sell it to me for a fraction of what its worth, even though the real value to me is more sentimental than anything. It features Dorothy's pinks and greens and has become the color palette of much of my life.
I remembered one of Dorothy’s paintings from my childhood that I wanted to hunt down. It happened to be at my brother's house and his wife was delighted to see it come to a place of prominence in my living room and got it to me right away. I grew up looking at it as it hung over our couch when I was a kid, and it made me feel cozy and familiar to have it back in my home. It's hung near my Japanese screen and is a less formal scene featuring Dorothy's first homestead, but the clouds and water look like they could flow right into the screen.
A Potato-Quality Selfie feat. my mom’s vanity and getting ready for a Christmas Tea Party!
I’ve always had my mom’s maternal great-great aunt’s bedroom set, so I didn’t have to mental sweep to add it, but I wanted to include it in the list since it certainly did come out of my grandma’s barn at one point to come into my possession. It's a three-piece set including a dresser, a vanity, and a full bed. My mother grew up with this vanity/bedroom set and when I outgrew my crib she passed it down to me! I love that this mirror has watched so many generations of us girls grow older through many stages of life I'll share more in my next post about something fun that worked out with those.
Several items came from physically, not mentally, pillaging my mom’s garage, and since I am closest to her, I held no shame in requesting a few things straight out of her house. Some people might find this kind of relationship odd, but she’s been doing it with her mom and grandmas her whole life and I’m sure my kids will get me back one day too.
To name a few, my hutch is now full of her Bavarian Bone China and I have at least a dozen tablecloths and linens from her stash that she was happy to part with. I also ended up with an old radio that I restored and put a bluetooth speaker in!
The one from her that I am most excited about is something I got from her bakery!
My grandma gifted me an old card catalog when I was about 12 so I could store sewing notions in it. It’s oak, which I usually don’t care for, but this one is stained a beautiful dark walnut color and has so much character! It also stacks so you can make it as tall or short as you want it to be. It’s certainly one of the more unique and interesting pieces in our home.
When we opened the bakery we decided it would be fun to store our loose-leaf tea in it! It was adorable in there, but their employees tired quickly of dealing with loose-leaf tea and they needed the extra space for another table, so I got the card catalog back and put it in my dining room. I’m enjoying storing tea in it! It’s fun to saunter up to it in the morning and sniff each drawer to see what the day calls for.
The piece is perfectly accented by an exquisite Satin pothos that I have been babying for the past 5 years. The two have been together since their early bakery days and Simply cannot be separated!
As you can see, Phase One worked out quite well for us! Big expenses like appliances, living room furniture, and new kitchen lighting are covered!
Phase One is a soft wave of casual treasure hunting. Phase Two on the other hand is much more violent! Yes, Phase two is where Facebook marketplace, estate sales, and thrift stores come into play.
Stay tuned for my next post highlighting some of my favorite secondhand conquests!