Per usual the EHD gals have been vintage shopping. Honestly, we’re always on the hunt but since we all had a little something to share (and three MASSIVE steals!), we thought a blog post was in order. I mean aren’t we all vintage lovers, intoxicated by the hunt?? So buckle up those seat belts and get ready for a very exciting, very versatile EHD vintage haul. Let’s go!
Emily
Someone is very proud of her vintage finds:) Let’s do a show and tell, shall we?
I have a vision for this winter moose painting, I do. You see, next Christmas we are shooting our house decked out for the holidays for, get this, Christmas of 2027. SOO, I have a year to come up with some new ideas but I know I have the best shot at these ideas while I’m in the spirit (aka now). So I found this painting and thought it would be so fun to do a winterscape gallery wall in the entry with all vintage paintings. How cute would that be?? I bought this in Aurora and love the moose 🙂
I certainly didn’t need this and for $200 it wasn’t cheap, but I loved it and honestly, I had waited in line at the Scandinavian market for a while and wanted to leave with something I was excited about. It’s a very pastoral oil painting by an artist who has sold pieces for $15k so I’ll just go ahead and assume it’s worth $15k which means it was a STEAL!
Also, I got the cutest lettuce wear chip and dip I ever did see for either $1 or $5 (I like to say everything is $1 but maybe it’s $5, I almost immediately lie to myself with vintage stuff to rationalize spending the dough).
Beautiful hand-painted broken plates for $1 each 🙂 These would look so pretty hung in a kitchen and I have thought about it, but for now, I love them and just couldn’t resist spending $5 on the lot.
I love the idea of this Scandi folk art candle holder and for $5 I had to get it. Now I need to have a sweet little luncheon with these new vintage linen plaid napkins. It’s all so sweet.
Caitlin
You may have already heard me yappin’ about these lamps, but YAP I MUST. I scored these two charming wooden lamps for $20 a pop. I loved their shape, their construction, and their heft. (This photo doesn’t do their scale justice – they’re almost 2′ tall and crafted from sturdy, solid wood, so they’re BEEFY. In the complimentary way, of course.) Normally I do a first pass of the entire flea market before buying anything – I want to get my bearings, see if there are any pieces with better pricing elsewhere, etc. – but these were a first-pass score for me. I couldn’t leave them behind! (The price tag helped, obviously.)
I schlepped these behemoths around the Rose Bowl parking lot for TWELVE MILES. That’s almost a half marathon. (Which is ironic, seeing as the idea of participating in some sort of actual, intentional, planned half marathon makes me break out in a cold sweat. But if you were to say, “hey, do you want to wake up at 4 AM and then walk in circles around a parking lot for 4 hours while navigating an increasingly-growing crowd and yanking 40 pounds of lamps behind you,” I’d be first in line.) ANYWAY – they were worth the sacrifice because a bit of provenance research led me to discover that these cuties are 90 years old, French, and worth a pretty penny. (No offense, Ben Folds, but I am the luckiest.)
But wait: there’s more. You know that part of the Rose Bowl that’s kind of, like, separate? There are aisles and aisles of retailers near the entrance, and then there’s that long skinny stretch (pictured above), and then there’s a handful of 4 or 5 booths that exist in their own little quiet universe on the fringe of the parking lot? Well, that part is a bit of a trek, BUT IT ROCKS. (This information is for your eyes only, FYI. I don’t need all of your friends swarming my secret spot.)
Case in point: I made the long walk (while hauling those lamps, no less) and, at the end of my travels, I discovered this $120 antique butcher block. I HAVE NEVER PURCHASED SOMETHING SO QUICKLY IN MY LIFE. (I probably could run a half marathon if you told me there’d be a cheap butcher block at the end, now that I’m thinking about it.)
Two men loaded the butcher block onto a slipshod furniture dolly for me; I offered my two lamps as collateral. I did not consider that it might be difficult to navigate this large piece through crowds, a busy street, dirt, mud, grass, a challenging outcropping of rocks, etc. I also forgot that I, a woman who has undergone a litany of spinal procedures, lacked the physical strength to lift an antique butcher block into a vehicle. But no matter – I operated on pure adrenaline, driven by my $120 find. I was like a woman lifting a car off a baby. I do not know how this butcher block made it all the way to my car. I do not know how I lifted it, solo, INTO said car. (Scientists need to research the strength that women seem to be able to tap into when handling furniture alone. It’s extraordinary and universal, I swear.) But our newfound butcher block is safe at home now, where it’s since paid host to a bevy of wonderful dinner ingredients. Long live the Rose Bowl, amirite?!
Jess
At the start of this year, I asked my dad if he could build me a wall cabinet if I drew it out. Being the wonderful guy he is he replied, “Get me a drawing and I’ll do it. JEEZ”. It took me um four months to go pick it up (he’s a 7-hour drive away) and then it sat unfinished in my hallway till last weekend. I’m nothing if not consistent in my painfully slow design process…smh. But when he was down last month we did a little vintage shopping and popped into Liz’s Antquiqe Hardware. If you’ve never been go! It’s not cheap but it’s amazing just to see what they have. It’s there that I found my dream knobs:
Look at these beauties! The perfectly patina’d perforated brass trim and the work MCM wood center and arm, I couldn’t have asked for more. Well actually, “more” is the only thing I wanted. I needed 9 but they only had 7. My dad was generous, yet again, and bought me all 7 with 3 other new brass knobs to fill in the gaps. Now, I don’t think I’ll shoot this area for the blog and the piece isn’t done yet, but so you can see the full picture here’s where I’m at with it…
I’d like to put it on the official record that I am NOT a good wood stainer. Actually, I would describe myself as terrible — the doors are fine (I used a gel stain and it’s so much easier to use) but the body is comically bad. Also, the plan was to have the entire piece be stained that pretty warm MCM brown but my dad used a different type of wood for the doors with a green undertone and the stain looked SO DIFFERENT but not in a way that worked. I tried to ton of options but going a super dark brown was just the best and easiest option. So while it’s not exactly how I pictured it, it’s perfectly good and it’s another piece that reminds me of my dad. I don’t think the brass knobs I got for the skinny doors work stylistically so it’s back to the drawing board there. Oh, and the large door on the bottom right is too big (*cough dad messed up cough*) so I’ll be sanding that down hopefully tomorrow. But at least it’s off the floor, I can put things in it, and we’re in the home stretch, baby!
Mallory
I was desperate for some solid nightstands (they really make all the difference), so when I stumbled upon these for $250 each at the vintage store near me called Salvare Goods, I was SMITTEN. I’m heavily drawn to black lacquer (I love a CB2 kind of glam moment) and I just thought the shape of these was pretty unique. PLUS they’re more of a dark brownish/black so it’s not too intense which I love and they work perfectly with my very special pillow!!!
This qualifies less as a “vintage find” and more as a “fate brought this pillow to me find”. BASICALLY what happened was I went to a bar when I was in New York called Tigre and saw this FABULOUS fabric on the bench seating there. I did some research and found it online – it’s called Dedar Milano Tiger Mountain (and yes, you can guess by the name it is very fancy and expensive).
BUT I was chatting on IG with Stitchroom (the upholstery company that created my dining nook benches from my last apartment) and they said that they happened to have remnants of that fabric and they didn’t know what to do with it so they made me the most incredible pillow!!! I literally sobbed when it arrived. I made a full video on it here if you want to see more!! I’M SO OBSESSED WITH IT!!!
I also found these candle holders at Salvare Goods and thought they were so awesome – it was an immediate “hell yes!!” I find it can be so tough to fill awkward corners in a room, so I thought these could be perfect in my living or dining room. Plus, I love candles SO much so it’s always nice to add a little ambiance:)
It’s true. We got a piano before we even had a dining table. But hey, this piano found us. We needed each other and we didn’t even know it. We stumbled upon this beautiful Baldwin at St Vincent de Paul in LA for only $175 and knew it was fate!! I called my mom (who is an incredible pianist and has a GORGEOUS baby grand Steinway at her house) and was like, “yo should we get this piano?” and she was SHOCKED when she realized it was a Baldwin for that price. Will it be expensive to get it tuned? Probably. But most pianos need to be tuned, it’s always a thing, and at this price, we were certainly willing to try. Worst case my mom said we could swap the keys out and put a keyboard in (which I had never heard of but thought that was a genius idea) or maybe I’ll pick up piano restoration in my spare time (HA). But these bad boys sell for THOUSANDS of dollars online (like this one) and they’re not nearly as pretty as ours imho so it’s worth the hassle.
Oh and speaking of hassle. There’s something you should know if you’re thinking about buying a piano (especially an untuned one like ours) at a thrift store – the cost of delivery for a piano is wildly expensive which is why many people are throwing pianos at you for dirt cheap so you can take it off their hands because they are truly impossible to move. SO to get our piano delivered by the store we bought it at was another $100 (which was curbside only fyi). All in all, once we got it in here it was so pretty that we thought it was so worth it. Now time to look for piano tuners (if you have any recs in LA let me know!!) and a cute piano bench!
Gretch
Both of my vintage finds I picked up at different thrift stores around Portland. The basket I snagged from big-box, Value Village, and when I saw it on the shelf for $6 I about died. It’s hard to know whether or not this basket is truly “vintage,” though judging by the broken handle it came with, I think it would be safe to say. It’s a market basket, or a “bolga” basket, named after the town of Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana. I can only assume that’s where it comes from as it seems to be traditionally woven in elephant grass and the like, complete with a classic leather handle that is so beautifully worn. The colors are so me and I love that it’s slightly misshapen from years of use. Two people stopped me in the store to tell me it was “such a good find” or that they were “so jealous I picked it up first”. I did have to make a slight repair to part of the handle where it came undone. I’m not sure the original weaver/artist would approve of my E600 glue technique to fix it, but function-wise, it works great and looks like it was never busted to begin with! It’s been floating around my living room holding either blankets or lately, Christmas decorations I’m in the process of putting up.
This wooden planter looks like a ’70s dream to me. I spotted it on the floor of this funky hole-in-the-wall thrift store here in Portland called Psanctum Thrift. This shop is mostly filled with clothes but I love popping in to see if there are any hidden gems in their small homewares section. At first, I thought this was some sort of lamp until I got closer and realized it was a planter. I would’ve loved it either way. I’m pretty sure I scored it for around $8! I just think the curved legs are rad, I dig the slatted sides and I appreciate that it sort of sits like a small end table. Not pictured is the enclosed/ inset wooden top that has a hole just big enough for a 6″ pot. My monstera sits perfectly inside and how cute does it look cozied up to my market basket?
Pretty exhilarating, right? Between Em, Caitlin, and Mal’s insane deal scores and all the pretty things, I might need to do a little weekend shopping being this revved up. I mean the Rose Bowl is on Sunday…Happy Friday everyone;)
