Green Decorating Room By Room TIAS Antique Dealers & Owners of “An American Antique Adventure” & the “Missouri Peddler” are seeing GREEN. They are sharing MONEY SAVING ideas while creating warm & inviting spaces on a RECESSION bud
News-Antique.com - Mar 04,2009 - TIAS Antique Dealers & Owners of “An American Antique Adventure” & the “Missouri Peddler” are seeing GREEN. They are sharing MONEY SAVING ideas while creating warm & inviting spaces on a RECESSION budget AND it’s great for the environment.
Over the past 28 years my husband, two daughters & I have decorated & redecorated 15 family living quarters! We’ve re-used furniture, textiles,pottery, rugs, quilts, art work and more from college dorms, a first apartment 5th floor walk up in Hoboken, to our home all on a budget!
And the BONUS is we feel good about saving good solid furniture from landfills. It’s fun to find great, affordable things for our homes knowing it is also great for the environment. It’s like an Easter Egg Hunt!
We all have different decorating styles which makes it even more fun collecting together. The bonus side is when we are tired of something, or want to move up in quality.... we can sell what we no longer wish to keep. You won’t be able to sell that lovely big-box store chair or desk with the same resale value of an antique or older items made from “real wood.”
First homes ranged from an Eastern Shore 70’s rancher to a Chesapeake Bay fishing cottage to a Pennsylvania stone house built in 1750! Some things got re-used other re-sold and “new to us/ older things.”
We filled all of these “warm & inviting homes” with affordable treasures discovered at yard sales, tag sales, auctions, flea markets,thrift stores & antique malls!
An area of the recession seldom mentioned are the “antique dealers” of the world, those of us that just don’t want to give up the fun of the hunt & the pleasure received in “re-using” something in a new way. Our sales are hurting too, so now is a good time for “striking a deal”. We want to move things, we aren’t in this to be a museum... so we added a “make an offer” button to our TIAS shop & offer the deals as well in the co-op we are in.
My hope is to add more articles on “Being Old And Green” and “Decorating Inexpensively By Re-Using Finds”.
First time “decorators” or “budget conscious couples” should know there is NO formal education nor training required to decorate your home with style. The only requirement is to love life, family & home.
For example I was raised in the Midwest in the 50s by a typical middle class family. I spent the early 60s in college & decorated with posters. As a new wife & mother in the late 60s & early 70s my decorating style left much to be desired.
My mother loved the wild textiles of the 50’s and she decorated our ‘50s ranch home with “New 50s” furniture, dishes, yes, even a silver Christmas tree! While my maternal grandmother’s home was filled with Fiesta Ware, Roseville & Arts & Crafts Furniture.
My first apartment’s decor was chosen by my then fiancé &
