Why Our Home Needs More Old Things

psst: I promised you our hall bath reveal today, but one of our brand partners asked us to hold it until the new year. It’s still coming, I promise!

THE HILL HOUSE

Let me introduce you to my new favorite vintage find in the whole house: six upholstered dining chairs we found at an estate sale for $100 (even the legs are upholstered. THE LEGS!). They came home with a long wool runner, a rotary phone from 1970 that my kids haven’t put down since, a stack of ’80s and ’90s interiors books, and a handful of other treasures. I’m giddy about every single one. Not because they’re fancy. But because they’re unique and beautiful without being precious and we found them just a couple blocks from home.

The sale was one of those we-were-out-for-a-walk-and-saw-signs situations, so we wandered in with no list and ended up finding a truck bed’s worth of things. So Garrett ran home, grabbed the truck and our 13-year-old, and came back to load it all up and haul it home before Saturday soccer games. I was on a pure vintage-finds high by the time we unloaded in the driveway!

After spending two and a half weeks in England this fall, I am of the mindset that we all need more old things in our homes :) Over there old stuff was EVERYWHERE. The houses, of course. But also the furniture and rugs and decor. Even the tables at the small, rustic, out-of-the-way pubs were old and gorgeous! And the art? I never once saw a faux-vintage print. It was all actual vintage art (just look at our holiday let in Bath!). Nobody seemed to be hiding how old things were, or in a hurry to swap them for something new. So this estate sale hit at just the right time. Let’s get into it...

Okay, the chairs. My 13-year-old informed me they were the ugliest thing at the estate sale. Ha! That honestly gave me the encouragement I needed to buy them. Sometimes the line between ugly and beautiful is thin. And if it were up to Wilder, we’d have La-Z-Boys around the dining table, anyway ;)

But once these chairs made it home, Wilder admitted they were “pretty good”. Do you agree?

They appear to have been custom made at some point. They’re substantial and beautifully constructed and the upholstery is in remarkably good condition. The fabric is a big woven floral number and it’s definitely a look. Reminds me of the 90s a bit. A few years ago I would’ve brought them home already planning to reupholster. Now the fabric is my favorite part. I don’t want six pristine chairs that make me nervous when a kid shows up with marinara sauce on his shirt. I want chairs that have already lived a little and can handle us living our lives right here.

Right now the chairs are pulled up to my 20th anniversary table in the semi-torn-apart living room (yes, I ordered the table myself, but Garrett was informed it was my present ;). That’s where we’re eating at the moment, since the dining room is in rougher shape. But soon we’ll be working on both rooms and I don’t know where we’ll be eating then but I can’t wait to get these spaces moving!

Once you see the chairs with the table, I think they give off Anthropologie vibes, but with a hint of 90s.

I also found a great wool runner ! It needed a really good vacuum and some fresh air, and there’s a bit of a musty smell I’m hoping baking soda will take care of. But it’s deep green with a red and cream border, and it’s going to look beautiful on our freshly refinished, 116-year-old fir floors in the upstairs hallway once I air it out.

psst: here’s my best tip if you like to pop into estate sales and yard sales like me. Keep a note on your phone with the dimensions of the things you’re looking for. I keep one long note for the Hill House, so I knew we needed an upstairs hallway runner up to 3' x 10'. I borrowed a tape at the sale, confirmed this one came in at exactly 10', and made an offer! It’s SUCH a letdown when you get something home and it doesn’t fit.

We also got some great small stuff. A few bamboo trays and wine glasses we were lacking. Why order a pricer set of glasses online when they’re essentially the same thing and my kids will eventually chip or break them while doing the dishes anyway (no dishwasher atm)?! A stack of interiors books from the 80s and 90s, too. I’m always hunting for old interiors books because they’re such an authentic and fun look at previous decades and they’re so cheap and so full of inspiration.

I also found a framed poster for my golf-loving son, which joined my recent collection of art finds: a vintage paint-by-number and a local oil of Mt. Rainier from our antique store trips, plus a set of ink prints from a salvage shop in Seattle, every one a Seattle view by artist Hal Mize (extra fun since we spend so much time over there!). And a wood carved bowl from a vintage market in Bath, which means I get to think of England every time I look at it. That’s the thing with unique decor - I can tell you where every single one of these came from, and usually a fun story about getting a deal or falling in love or the adventure it took to find it. Furnishing a house really can be fun!

It’s More Than a Look

Here’s what I keep coming back to. You can make a beautiful house in a weekend with a cart full of new things. And certainly, there’s nothing wrong with new (I love mixing new with old to bump up the comfort and layered feel!). But a beautiful house isn’t the same as a home. A home is deeply personal, thoughtful, and unique, and it’s the process that gets it there. It’s hands-on. Maybe even a little romantic. You go to the sale, you see something, you drag it home, you vacuum it, you move it around three times, and eventually it’s just yours.

And there’s a practical side to all of this, too. Six chairs for $100. A runner for $10. Wine glasses I won’t shed a single tear over when one inevitably breaks. Buying secondhand is SO much easier on the budget, and it’s a lot kinder to the planet, too. A chair, rug, or glass that gets a second life stays out of the landfill, and it’s one less new thing to make, ship, and eventually toss. When you’re renovating and furnishing an entire house, neither of those is small.

Then there’s the quality, which honestly might be the best part. Older pieces are often just better made (solid wood, real joinery, natural fibers, handwoven, etc, etc), and the ones that survive tend to be the good ones. Those English pub tables I mentioned earlier will probably still be kicking in another hundred years, albeit a little more scratched up and stained. Of course, not everything old is a gem, so give it a good wiggle before you buy it!

The flip side is true, too: plenty of new things are well made, and I’m certainly not saying buying new is bad. Take my anniversary table. It’s a reclaimed oval farm table made in California by a woman-founded, family-run company, it’s sturdy and beautifully crafted, and I can easily see it lasting for generations. Mostly, though, I just love what this table means for our family. It’s the setting our kids will remember from their childhood - Christmas dinners, riday pizza parties with friends, regular ol’ Monday night family dinners with boring pasta, long games of pitch and Five Crowns, homework. You definitely don’t have to drop thousands on a new table to make those memories (I could’ve found a nice secondhand option for less eventually). But the point is that finding a good table for your family to make memories around is worth the effort!

You Don’t Have to Rush

In case you need to hear this: there’s no deadline on a home. I think it’s especially easy to forget that when you’re just moving in. When we landed at the Hill House three years ago, we needed everything. The Farmhouse had unexpectedly sold furnished, and then we furnished the Poplar Cottage and left everything there as a short-term rental. So when we moved into the Hill House, we threw mattresses on the floor and started from scratch.

We started with beds, of course. A place to work and eat and sit, yes. But there was a pull to decorate every wall, put a rug on every floor, and find something for every little shelf, and fast. And you really don’t have to. In fact, rushing it might just ruin it. Secondhand shopping is the perfect cure, because you can’t order a collected home on a Tuesday afternoon with free two-day shipping. You find things when you find them. You collect. And you mix it all in with what you already have, like the framed newspaper clipping of my dad’s childhood dog. Layering in the personal things is what makes a home. Or at least a uniquely personal, collected, and (I think) beautiful one.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Home takes time.

So consider this your nudge: the next time you spot estate sale signs, stop in. Bring your note of dimensions, borrow a tape measure, and leave the shopping list at home. And take a second look at the thing that seems a little ugly, because it might just be the best thing there. Then come tell me what you found!

xx

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