My Story: How I Became A Vintage Home Decor Seller, Collector, And Stylist

INTEREST

I was always interested in creative and artsy activities. I earned a Girl Scout badge in home decor at age 13, loved sewing and fashion, and was intrigued by home decor, antiques, etc. My favorite job in my entire career was working for Gumps in San Francisco where I was a buyer and traveled domestically and internationally to all the big shows including High Point sourcing better and high-end home decor. Yes, it was fun. It was great to learn about furniture, decorative accessories, and the business of home decor. It took a while to figure out how to monetize my passion for home decor and become a vintage home decor seller.

SHOPPING

I have been shopping for vintage and preowned stuff for a long time. My first visit to a flea market was in 1976 in Goleta, California at the Goleta Drive-In Swap Meet. Swap Meet was a prevalent name back in the 1970s and 80s. I liked the adventure, the hunt, and discovering the interesting and unusual items. It was a fun social activity. I still have a couple of items from those early days and I can still hear my parents asking me upon returning home from the swap meet, “Now what did you get?” My first piece of Couroc was found there. A large salad bowl with a lobster on the bottom. A Found an amusing vintage cocktail and entertaining book for $1. The writing and illustrations were hilarious. (Recently found it listed online for $60.) Early on I was very interested in vintage barware, shakers, and glassware. My first shaker was $.10. Yes, I still have it.

FLEA MARKETS & SECOND HAND STORES

I got interested again in the flea markets while living in San Francisco. I visited the Rose Bowl Flea Market back in the mid-1990s. Then I discovered a large bay area flea market called the Alameda Point Antiques Faire. How did I not ever hear of this large, cool flea market? This market was the first Sunday of every month and rivaled the Rose Bowl.  I also started visiting the Alameny Flea Market in South San Francisco regularly in the early 2000s. Occasionally I’d pop into a local estate sale in the city. I still have a very collectible Paul Frankle black combed wood desk, chair, and record cabinet that I bought in the late 1990s in the Richmond district. I needed a desk and thought it was cool. I didn’t feel right about breaking up the set, so I got all 3 pieces for $125.

A few years later I was visiting Santa Barbara and there was an antiques store my mom and I liked to frequent called Modern Life. I bought the most gorgeous black lacquer dining table and 6 chairs for $300. It was a steal. The salesperson told me it had come from a very nice estate in Montecito and was very well made. I wanted it because I had just seen something similar in one of Madonna’s homes.

VINTAGE JEWELRY

Shortly after 9/11, I got the itch to create something from vintage jewelry. I remember that it was always plentiful and cheap at the flea markets. So I shopped a few markets and thrift stores to source vintage costume jewelry and created a collection of one-of-a-kind, upcycled bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. My collection was carried at Nordstrom, Anthropologie, and Kate Spade. Check out this post to learn more about the bracelets I created for Kate Spade. One of my bracelets made the cover of the San Francisco Chronicles 2004 Fall Fashion Insert. I was thrilled.

I did this full-time for about 2 years and then worked at Bloomingdales. The OOAK jewelry collection slowed as it became very popular and the competition increased. I switched my business model to selling found vintage costume jewelry as that was far more profitable. Along the way, I started buying vintage accessories and home decor and sold items via an Etsy storefront very part-time. My passion for home decor blossomed again.

Trunk Show In Los Angeles 2011.

Trunk Show In Los Angeles 2011.

FROM COLLECTOR TO SELLER AND STYLIST

In spring 2020 the pandemic hit. Furloughed, I had plenty of time to shop in thrift stores. I finally accepted that the good stuff just finds me. One day I bought 4 pieces of Arte Italica for $30. Familiar with this brand because of my time with Bloomingdales I knew I could sell it for a good profit. 4 weeks later I flipped those canisters into $1000. I finally surrendered to my innate talent to find the cool, fab stuff at flea markets and thrift stores. Years of working in retail combined with my skill to find the good stuff was starting to pay off.

Excited to try my hand at being a serious vintage home decor seller I dove into researching trends and following influencers so I could spot those hot items in my local thrift stores. I reopened my Etsy Shop and storefront on Chairish and switched my focus to home decor. Business boomed. I was a full fledged vintage home decor seller and loving it! In 2023 I added Ebay and WooCommerce to my selling channels.

Here are some of my favorite styling sessions. Almost everything in these photos is vintage or preowned.

My favorite parts of this job are keeping up with trends, styling items so they look so good that I’m tempted to keep them, the thrill of the hunt, learning the history of a piece, and of course, making a profit. Click here to shop my latest vintage finds. Are you a vintage and antique lover?  What kinds of things do like or collect? Let me know in the comments below.