Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

In my home, we have a new puppy! After mourning the loss of our beloved dog a few weeks ago, we just adopted Roxie, a reverse brindle boxer with white socks on her feet. Nine weeks old, she's playful and inquisitive, exactly what we needed.

Having a puppy in the house brings out the mischief in all of us. Roxie is going to be a big dog, so we bought a big crate for her. A couple of times this week, I've come home to find our five-year-old locked in the crate. "Dad," he would plead with a sheepish half-grin, "get me outta here!" When he'd crawled into the crate to cuddle the puppy, his two older brothers pounced on the chance to bolt the door.

Kids love to tease each other and hide in secret places. Like puppies, they have an irresistible urge to play - but they are often unaware of the risks. That's why we want to alert you to a potential danger you may have in your home: the hope chest.

From the 1920s until the late 1960s, hope chests were a treasured gift. In it, young women would store needlework, linens and even baby clothing in anticipation of marriage. Lane's hope chests were among the most popular. They were airtight with robust locks, perfect for preserving heirloom items.

But that meant they also were the most dangerous. Two children recently suffocated to death in a Lane Hope Chest in Franklin, MA. Once the lid closes on these well-made chests, they cannot be opened from the inside. Since 2003, seven children have died in accidents involving hope chests.

Most antique and consignment stores are aware of the dangers and have removed the locks, but there are millions of old hope chests still in use in homes with locks intact. Removing the lock is easy. As a public service, we've created a "how to" video to show you how to do it. Lane also is offering safer replacement locks for free.

So please, watch the video and spread the word. If you have a hope chest or know of someone who does - even if it is tucked away in a corner of the attic - remove the lock. You could save a life.

Lane Form to order new Child Safe Lock: Here

I've been watching holiday shoppers in our showroom this week and it isn't a pretty sight. They wander in grumbling to themselves looking vaguely disoriented - like astronauts who made a rocky landing on an alien planet.

"Where am I?" they're mumbling. "Why am I here?" 

To anyone who's suffering the gift-giving blues, I'd like to offer some cheerful advice: You can do it. We can help.

Okay, so I'm paraphrasing the motto of a big home-improvement store. But we've scored a couple of victories here.

One young woman was on the hunt for a gift for her mom who spent the summer helping her set up her first apartment. How to thank her? She knew her mother loved fine furniture, and she was thrilled to find a tiger maple candlestick table, crafted by the famed cabinetmaker Eldred Wheeler. She skipped out the door, hugging her purchase.

A construction worker dashed in on his lunch break to buy a coffee table his wife had fallen in love with last weekend. Another woman was overjoyed to find a bronze sculpture of a cowboy clinging to a wildly bucking horse, a museum-quality replica of a Frederic Remington. Her husband was a passionate collector of Western memorabilia. She left the store beaming.

Let's be honest. It's hard to buy something special for those who mean the most to us. Thoughtful just isn't enough. We're looking for starry-eyed wonder when they open the package.

Closing up the other night, I checked every corner of the store. As always, our showroom has seen a lot of traffic, and I've found everything from balled-up tissues to my own business card - with trample marks - on the floor.  But I can always count on finding at least one item that will make me smile.

After a busy day, I always find remnants of lollipops scattered around the store. A blue wrapper in one corner. A red one under a dresser. Here, a well-gnawed white stick. You wouldn't think I'd like picking up trash every night. The truth is, I'm O.K. with it.

That's because lollipops changed this business.

Seven years ago, Diana and I bought Furniture Consignment Gallery from the couple who started the business. They'd had some good years, but they had grown weary of the grind of moving furniture, and they wanted to move onto the next phase in their life. To us, it seemed, they'd also tired of the challenges of retail.

The showroom was littered with signs, none of them friendly. "Don't Touch Me" was stuck on a topiary. "No Strollers" greeted shoppers at the bottom of the stairs. "Keep Children in Hand" was taped to the front door. Tacked in the stairwell: "No Food or Drink."

On our first day as new owners, Diana gathered up all the signs. Stopping in to say goodbye, the former owners were appalled. "What if someone spills coffee on a white sofa?" the woman demanded. "What if someone trips on the stairs carrying a stroller?" her husband asked.

"Well," I offered, a bit hesitantly. "We think you were missing a market."

"Really?" the woman huffed. "Which one?"

"Moms with kids," I said.  

The next day, Diana filled a bowl with lollipops for our customers. By the end of the week, it was empty. We filled it again. A few weeks later, we got a bigger bowl.

After seven years, I can offer the Federal Reserve a reliable new indicator of business growth: lollipops. The faster we go through candy, the higher our sales.

As it turns out, moms with kids aren't the only ones who love a sweet treat while shopping. So do newlyweds. And twentysomethings furnishing their first apartment, "empty nesters" outfitting the new townhouse. And even the seasoned business man who was unraveling a root beer flavored pop. He was asking me why we seemed to be doing well in this difficult economy.

I gave him a dum dum answer.

So, stop by anytime. We promise to keep the showroom stocked with quality furniture - and the candy bowl filled with lollipops. Try to throw your wrappers away, but if one sifts through your fingers and hits the floor while you are admiring a glistening mahogany chest of drawers; I won't mind picking it up at the end of the day. Really.

     He parked his bicycle outside the store on Route 9 in Chestnut Hill, opened the door and staggered into the showroom, out of breath and sweating profusely. "It's hot out there," he announced, wiping his brow.

      "My wife sent me to check out some chairs," he told us. He was an older gentleman, but it was apparent from his build and his firm hand-shake that he may have been quite an athlete years ago. We pulled up a chair for him and offered him a gulp of water.

     Like him, the Chippendale chairs had a rich patina, were full of character and solid as a rock. He looked them over and bought them decisively. The decisiveness is a trait that had likely served him well during, what we guessed to have been, a successful business career.

     He decided to forego the bike ride home, and called his wife for a ride. Twenty minutes later, a woman strode into the store, clearly exasperated. She was a bit younger, pretty and a polished suburban wife. "What were you thinking?" she scolded the man. "The bike? In this heat? Route 9? Are you crazy?"

     Despite the lecture - and a tumultuous medical history - he didn't look a bit sheepish. In fact, he ignored the rant and turned to us with a reasonable request. "Put those chairs aside for me. I'll be back to get them a bit later. Oh, and don't sell my bike."

      After he left we thought: who wouldn't want to almost kill themselves by bicycling down Route 9 in blazing heat to buy their wife some chairs from FCG? It all made perfect sense to us.

"Beautiful!" the octogenarian bellowed at his wife a few feet away. The pair was admiring a massive cherry hutch with beveled glass they found in the showroom and intended to buy. "We can move this ourselves," his wife hollered back with delight. "We don't need to pay the delivery fee."

Looking a bit doubtful, he gingerly made his way over to the hutch and attempted to lift the top half of the hutch an inch or two to gauge its weight. "I think we can get it," he announced with confidence to the entire population of Hanover, MA. She made her way to the opposite side and concurred. "Oh, yes, dear, we can."

To this pair, life is a bucking bronco - and you'd best grab it by the horns.

Married when Elvis was crooning Love Me Tender on the Hit Parade, the two were still feathering their nest and having adventures. After a buying spree in our showroom, they were going to look at motor homes for a cross-country jaunt. 

He was 82. She was 81. The fun, they assured me, was just starting. 

The two actually preferred the view at 10,000 feet. Both have been aviators since they were first married. They have flown the friendly skies in his-and-her single-engine planes for more than a half-century.

Hers is a sporty 1968 Beechcraft, a plane that just begs for a flight outfit of go-go boots and a miniskirt.  She went out to the car to get photos. "I'll never sell it," she exclaimed. "It's my baby." Her husband just put a new engine in it for her.  

As for the hutch, I proposed they leave the heavy lifting to the pros. Why risk a slipped disc when there's so much more left on the bucket list? I convinced them to let our young bucks bring the hutch home for them - and they almost had me signed up for flight lessons.  

Those two old birds are doing it right: life at full throttle, even in your 80s.

Love the Adventure book featured? Buy it here.

So you tackled a redecorating project, but things went awry and you’re not exactly sure how it happened. Worse yet, you have no idea how to fix it. Here are five common decorating disasters and some tips on how to avoid them.

The Floral Fiasco: After agonizing over swatches for days, you finally found a chintz you liked for the sofa. So you decided to double down on that bet. You did the chairs, the ottoman, and the window treatments in the same fabric. Heck, you even bought another bolt to cover the bar stools and make a shower curtain. Yes, it is possible to have too much of a good thing – even if it is of good quality. I love tiger maple Eldred Wheeler, but a room full of it is boring and predictable. You might love the look of an all-white room in a design magazine, but err in the execution and your home will feel like an igloo. Good design is a skillful mix of patterns, color and texture.      

Photo: Bedroom 324 of the White House- "The room as the Chintz Bedroom, circa 1963  (Kennedy Library)"

The Skittles Color Scheme:

You wanted every room to have a unique personality, so you did each one in a different color. Now, your guests are looking for the pot of gold in your home because they think they’ve wandered into a rainbow. Pick a pleasing neutral that flows through your home, and you can still infuse your decorating scheme with spicy pops of color.

Photo of Color experiement Exhibit at Salone del Mobile in Milan by Porro

Scale Snafus: A small rug in a big room looks like a postage stamp on a pool table. There’s no excuse for that kind of mistake even if you must show off your beautiful hardwood floors. Scale is a tough challenge for a decorating newbie, but it is absolutely crucial. Cramming oversized furniture into a small space just shrinks the room – and causes bruising when you try to navigate around it. On the other hand, a big room looks cold and uninviting with furniture that is too small or too dainty. Scale isn’t just about the furniture, either. Patterns in fabric also affect proportions. Misunderstanding scale is where many inexperienced homeowners run amok in their decorating projects.   

Welcome to the Museum: Turning the little-used guest bath into a luxurious spa is a lovely idea, but it shouldn’t be your first – or even second – project. Dedicate most of your decorating budget to the rooms you use every day. We often see homes that boast a state-of-the-art home theatre or palatial guest quarters, but the family actually lives day-to-day in a space that has shabby furniture, bare windows and poor lighting. Don’t spend all your decorating dollars on the rarely used specialty rooms just to impress once-a-year guests. You and your family deserve comfort and beauty every day.

Dim-Bulb Design: Lighting should be

layered in almost every room. That typically means a combination of recessed lights, lamps large and small, and perhaps sconces and chandeliers. Plan for a variety of lighting in your decorating budget. I also recommend dimmers to set the mood. Dull lighting can make your rooms look gloomy and washed-out. On the other hand, no one feels comfortable in a place so bright it feels like an operating room.

The Black Monster: The television is a critical element in most family rooms, so you should take extra effort to make sure it is placed correctly. This can be a challenge. Putting a flat-screen above the fireplace could mean big chiropractor bills in the future. When the screen is set too high on the wall, you may get a crimp in your neck watching it. And you can’t always stick the television in a corner, either. When you invite folks over for beer and Bruins, you don’t want them executing a bizarre yoga twist just to catch a glimpse of the screen.  Finally, resist the temptation to buy the biggest flat-screen in the store. The television shouldn’t dominate the room.

Still, everyone makes mistakes. You shouldn’t punish yourself and force your family to live inside a cocoon of cabbage roses … if, say, you were the one who went overboard with the chintz. Call Furniture Consignment Gallery and we might just find another home for your mistake – and put some cash back in your pocket.

"I would accept a reasonable offer on the altar table." The gentleman - and potential consignor - indicated with a sweep of his hand on the long, rectangular table in his living room. The piece was clearly old, but it was rough-hewn and lacking any ornamentation.

     Curious, I asked him what he would consider reasonable. "A good offer would be twelve thousand," the man said firmly, "and a reasonable offer would be six thousand." 

     I gulped. Would that be in dollars or peanuts? I thought. I quickly squelched the comment, because I knew he wasn't joking.

     Asian furniture occupies a special niche in the consignment business. China is an ancient country, and treasured possessions such as porcelain and furniture typically have been passed down from generation to generation. In this case, the eight-foot altar table was more than two hundred years old. Its construction and workmanship suggested it had been built during the mid-Qing Dynasty, China's last dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1912.

     How did the table get to Boston? The gentleman's mother had been a pioneer of Asian-influenced interior design who had visited China frequently to scour that country for antiques after it opened to the West in the early 1970s. Some of her most important pieces had been consigned to the Boston Design Center, where showrooms had built vignettes around items she had collected in Japan, Korea and China.

      Her son had inherited some of her favorite pieces, including the altar table. While it wasn't as rare or exquisite as something you might see in the Shanghai Museum, it was beautiful for its history and provenance. Yet the price he was seeking was still astounding - at least for our customers.

     Sentimentality sometimes creates a fog of confusion for consignors when it comes to the value of their furniture. In this consignor's mind, the altar table may have represented his mother's adventurous spirit in venturing into a place as economically chaotic and primitive as China in the 1970s. Or the table may have been a reminder of her celebrated career as the doyenne of Chinese-inspired décor in Boston.

     But our buyers wouldn't see those things in this rough table and we couldn't command the price he was asking. We agreed that Furniture Consignment Gallery wasn't the right place to sell the table, and we parted as friends. In leaving, I offered him some advice. Antique stores that specialize in Asian furniture attract knowledgeable connoisseurs. After visiting with some specialty stores his pricing expectations could be validated or he may find that he would need to reset them. They would at least appreciate his altar table - and the story of the woman who launched it on its long journey to the U.S. Secretly I was hoping he would decide otherwise and give us a chance.

After the last few days in the store, we've decided to build a confessional into our showroom. Here you can recite your Act of Contrition, and you'll be absolved of all of your furniture purchasing sins, mortal or venial.

     All week long, a long line of penitents funneled through our door and poured out their hearts to us. "What was I thinking?" cried one consignor, admitting she had blown her budget for a decade on a furniture shopping spree. "Never again," another winced, recalling how she bought an enormous mansion at the peak of the market and furnished it lavishly.

      We heard every variation of the seven deadly sins. One greedily wanted a house bigger than her sister's. Another lusted after a friend's inlaid mahogany desk until she found one even more exquisite - and pricier - in an antique shop.

Their stories were all slightly different, but they had one thing in common: they wanted absolution - and some money back, too.

     Haven't we all been there?

     I can recall attending a live auction several years ago. Consumed in the bidding process, I vaguely remember g-forces driving my paddle up in the air faster than I could think. The heat of the moment, the competition, the will to win! All three took command of my soul. And, suddenly, "Sold for $275! The hutch goes to the gentleman on the left." 

     When I was bidding, I was riding a motorcycle on a winding country road. When the auctioneer banged the gavel, I hit a brick wall.

     The large mahogany hutch looked like a bargain when it was $50. After other buyers got involved in the fray, its value seemed to soar. Once they announced the new proud owner was moi I started to sweat at my poor decision-making. I did some fast math: $275 plus the auctioneer's commission of 12%, plus sales tax 6.25%. I had to move it within the next forty-eight hours and worse yet, where am I going to store it until I figure out what I can do with it?

    I raised my hand. "Excuse me, sir... I'd like to apologize to the folks that I outbid. You see, I really don't need this hutch. It's not the money. What I was thinking? Can I give it back? This guy over here bid $250. Maybe you could sell it to him. I'll cover the extra $25."

     I was looking for absolution and my money back. The room went silent. The man I outbid shrunk down in his seat. Clearly, he had gotten caught up in bidding, too. Now, he just wanted me to go far, far away.

     Yes, I have been there. Haven't we all at one time or another? Life goes on. We make mistakes. Forgive yourself and move onto the next great thing in your life. And when it comes to fixing those mistakes, come see our new confessional at Furniture Consignment Gallery. We promise to listen - with sympathy - and help you get some money back, too.

In 1944, as war raged across Europe and the Pacific, Joline Anderson married Robert Wright in a borrowed gown with a bouquet of flowers nipped from her mother's backyard. For something old, the couple had an heirloom ring. Something new was a wedding gift from a friend and furniture maker: a Salem chest.

  For sixty years, that mahogany chest held the treasures of a long and happy marriage: baby booties, poodle skirts, cashmere cardigans, prayer books, postcards from the kids, photos of the grand-kids. It was one of the most special pieces in our showroom for the few days that we had it.

   Consigned by a family member who, sadly, didn't have room for it in his home, the chest seemed to whisper the secrets of lives well lived in homes well loved. There's magic in knowing the history of that chest.

     Indeed, stories are important. When I was in high school, I used to keep a journal. It was full of adolescence angst, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious when you read it twenty years later. I got a little lazy about writing when I went to college. Entries were terse and infrequent -I was majoring in English and channeling Hemingway - but there is one telling item written when I was a sophomore:

"I met a girl named Dianna today. She was pretty and nice." 

I may have spelled her name wrong, but I got the relevant facts right. She was pretty - and nice enough to marry me four years later.

    To some, it would seem silly to write down fleeting thoughts about our cars, our clothing, our furniture, our homes. But these are the details that illuminate our lives. Who doesn't remember their first car with all its loveable dents? Or that sofa that you managed to squeeze into your first apartment? Or the dining room table where you hosted your first Christmas dinner? All the nicks and scratches tell their own stories, often about the best days of our lives but, sometimes, about the worst days, too.

     We witness many a reflective moment with our consignors when they are turning over to us the furniture they've enjoyed for years. They'll tap a desk or a dresser gently with a far-away look in their eyes and relive a memory before entrusting it to our care.    

    So on the next rainy day, take a moment and jot down the history of some of your most prized possessions.  Even if it seems silly now, your story may have meaning for someone who may someday own that piece. Your words will enrich somebody's life - if only the consignment guy who opens a drawer and finds your note on a yellowed piece of paper.

He was straight from the big screen, I swear. 

He looked just like Doc Brown from the movie Back to the Future. Remember him? The zany professor obsessed with time travel? The guy in our showroom had the same frenetic energy, the enthusiasm, and, of course, the finger-in-the-light-socket hair.

     A retired teacher, the customer told me that he is living the dream with his wife. The two are sailing from Cape Cod to the Bahamas with lazy stops at any port that looks intriguing. What brought him to our store? He had furniture stored in seven states, he said, most of it inherited. Now, he wanted to consign it. He was having too much fun on the water to think about roosting on land again.

     This mad-scientist look-alike proceeded to pepper me with thoughtful questions about our business. The result was an impromptu Q&A.

Q. How does consignment differ from an estate sale?

A. An estate sale typically is a one, two or three-day event in which the contents of a house are sold. Sellers often hire a professional to appraise the contents and conduct the sale. A professional typically takes a percentage of the net proceeds as a fee, generally 35%.

  When you consign with Furniture Consignment Gallery, we remove the furniture from your home and sell it in our showroom. Your furniture is displayed artfully in our showroom with other quality items.

Q. Why would we choose consignment over an estate sale?

A. Some sellers like the idea of unloading their unwanted items quickly in a weekend estate sale. Others don't like the thought of letting the public or their nosy neighbors poke around inside their homes. Consignment means you don't have to sacrifice your privacy to sell your furniture.

Q. Have you ever discovered a 'lost treasure' that turned out to be worth millions?

A.  So you think you have a Rembrandt in the attic? Television shows such as "Storage Wars" and "Pawn Stars" are sparking fantasies like that among sellers, but that's just what they are - fantasies.

  Rarely does a seller pluck something from the cellar that turns out to be worth millions. Most people know the value of their possessions. They know the age and historical provenance of items that are valuable. Such items typically are sent to auction houses that specialize in valuable antiques.

Q. Do you travel to the countryside and scour old barns for heirlooms?

A. Honestly, we don't have the time to do a lot of archaeological work to stock our showrooms. We handle high-quality, name brand furniture that is generally less than twenty years old.  Sifting through an old barn for a jar that might bring a few bucks isn't really our business.

     After we wrapped up our chat, the sailor took a sweeping glance of our showroom as if he was scanning open water for whales or mermaids. For just a moment, he looked wistful. "This furniture is really beautiful," he said. "Sometimes, I miss having a home..."

     I suppose it is human nature to always yearn for what you don't have. I was ready to stowaway on his boat when he described the scarlet sun sinking into the horizon, its reflection radiating across the blue ocean.

      I may be living my dream here at Furniture Consignment Gallery, but I'd sure like to take to the sea someday like this old salt. Might even trade a dresser or two to make it happen.