Industrial – Country Design Home

In This Moment

Last weekend, Coach and I were sitting in a quaint sandwich shop, Bessie’s, in downtown Ogunquit, Maine, enjoying a quick lunch. We needed a break after having spent the morning loading the cars, driving north and then setting up our new shop space inside Hutchin’s Antiques Etc.

Hutchins Antiques Sign which was around the corner from where we sat. Chatting about our new space and how best to stock and decorate it, I had a moment of…I’m not sure of the word…wonderment perhaps? Thinking about all that had transpired in the past year that brought us to this place in this moment left me a bit overwhelmed. A year ago at this time, our new Maine cottage plan was slowly coming to fruition but still a dream away. At that time, we had no thoughts of setting up shop in Maine…after all, Coach had the Arundel Flea Market that he frequents quite often. Its a great outdoor flea market right near our cottage, BUT, its not so great when there’s a foot of snow and its 20 degrees outside! We had visited Hutchins’ during our frequent Maine visits and loved the quaint vintage vibe of the family-owned Village Blacksmith shop (c.1840) turned antiques co-op. So when Coach noticed a “this space for rent” sign on one of our recent visits, we jumped at the chance to set up shop, once again…hopefully for the last time! Our junking journey began so many years ago at Vintage Thymes in Norwood…

Vintage Thymes Market Shop then to The Barn at Todd Farm in Rowley (remember that giant rusty bedspring marquee sign? I miss that thing!)

Country Design Home in the Barn At Todd Farm and then on to the Mills at Pulaski Street in Peabody.

Pulaski Street Map Wall Each venue has had its own unique charm, and along the way, Coach and I have realized how much we enjoy doing what we do…reuse, restore, refurbish and sell…and we just weren’t ready to throw in the vintage towel quite yet!

Last weekend was the preliminary setup for the new space-ladders, doors, furniture and signs…of course, the signs : )

Hutchins Wall With Signs Anything we could stuff into our two SUVs-items that I had been working on for the past month-now fill the sunlight-splashed space.

Hutchins Setting Up Shop This weekend we’ll be adding some finishing touches…painted furniture and vintage accessories and lights for the tree…did I mention we have a tree in our space!?!

Hutchins Empty Space I’ll be adding more pics as we keep adding to and editing our shop-presently its decorated for the LOVE holiday that is fast approaching.

Hutchins Red Corner If you have a chance to visit- they’re open every day except Wednesdays during the winter (and they’re having a huge store-wide sale!) we’re in the shop on the right in the second room-just look for the sparkling tree : ) For now, it will be enough to say that I am so grateful for everything that has transpired over the past year to bring us home to Maine. Have a Maine-ly wonderful weekend, everyone! xoxo Susan

Filled to the “Brim”

We spent Saturday tromping through the fields of The Brimfield Antiques Show, “The world’s largest outdoor antique show”. One mile in length, scattered over 23 fields, with over 3000 dealers and 130,000 visitors that shop during the four show days, Brimfield is an adventure, to be sure. After spending the better part of 8 hours sorting through tents of refurbished furniture, industrial re-makes, textiles, bric-a-brac and other assorted “junktiques”, I can honestly say that I have had more than my fill of “treasure hunting”- at least for a while. So many vendors, so little time…so I am just going to show you a few highlights here.

Color was the name of the game, like this row of pretty vintage dresses hanging in the sunshine. The landscape was littered with painted pots, buckets, stools, signs- anything you could paint got a splash of color- sometimes with good results, sometimes not so much.

Late in the afternoon I stumbled upon (literally, I was sunburned, sick, hungry and about to call it quits) this lovely tent from Windham, Maine, by the girls from My Sister’s Garage. Beautifully decorated, it had more the appearance of a lovely shabby chic showroom than the random piles of goods many dealers had laying around on the ground. Rejuvinated, I moved on to Beth Hylan Designs, another pretty booth featuring vintage creations by Beth, next to her partners from Nesting on Main, another lovely tent at the show. The next stop was at Painted Pretty– and boy was it ever! The show-tent pulled me in with the color palette- teals and grays and black- so country pretty! I had seen badly re-painted furniture all day long, so I was so impressed with the quality and the beauty of their work. (By the way, they sell at the SoWa Vintage Market in Boston- definitely worth the trip if you are in the market for a vintage painted piece).

And the winner is..Industrial Chic! This table from Vintage Studios is an example of what you can do with some old factory parts, ingenuity and a lot of heavy lifting.

The biggest presence at the fair (other than those blue glazed jugs that seemed to be on every single table!) – was Industrial. If it came from an old warehouse, factory, barn or henhouse, someone up-cycled and re-purposed it into a bed, desk, sign, table, lamp, bench or light fixture. The more rustic and rustier the better. AMAZING. Got some great ideas for the Barn Workshop Project (details soon)

So with that I will leave you with a few more images of the best of the day, like these fabulous woven bags by Ahinsa Lifetime Weavers or these colorfully painted stools…and if you were wishing you had gone to “The Show”which I guess you could call the Big Leagues of Antiquing, don’t fret, they’ll be back in July! Signing off to put more sunburn cream on my face… Susan