Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

They met as teenagers at a clam shack on the Cape, and fell in love. For the last twenty years, they've worked hard to build a marriage, careers, and a family. On Thursday, the couple and their two young sons stopped by our showroom shortly after leaving their lawyer's office. "We just bought a house!" the wife exclaimed. "On the Cape!"

Summer is coming and they have big plans. They want to take the boys to Old Silver Beach. Dad grew up playing volleyball there. Mom was a waitress at a restaurant in Woods Hole. Lunch there is on the agenda, too. They envision a summer filled with sandcastles and picnics. But first, they need furniture.

Buying the house tapped out the savings account, the couple admitted, but they wanted the place ready for fun by Memorial Day - in ten days! Thrift shop stuff is tacky. New furniture wasn't an option, either. "It's expensive and it lacks character," Mom said. "And we don't want to wait weeks for delivery."

For this family, Furniture Consignment Gallery struck just the right balance of quality products at an affordable price.

With the help of our sales staff, who are skilled at interior design, the couple quickly picked out a house-full of furniture from our three stores: two leather love seats, a cocktail table with storage for puzzles and crafts, and a sideboard for the foyer. The sideboard is perfect for stashing away keys, cell phones and all the other flotsam of their busy urban life.

They also snagged a hardy maple dining set and some end tables for the living room. At our store in Plymouth, they discovered a classic bedroom set by Michael Ashton - and were delighted to learn that we carry a line of new mattresses to complete the deal.

After that whirlwind shopping spree, the couple had one last concern: delivery. No problem, we told them. Furniture Consignment Gallery's movers would carefully pack up all the furniture they'd selected from the three stores into a single truck and bring it to the house in Falmouth.

With heavy rains in the forecast for this weekend, it is the perfect time to feather your summer nest. Stop by one - or all three - of our stores. Whether you're heading to a beach cottage or a mountain lodge, you'll find everything you need for that second home at FCG.  

Like a lot of men, I panic every Mother's Day.

Shopping for my wife and my mother is overwhelming. First, there's the gift. Maybe some flowers. Then, I've got to elbow my way through a mob of guys at the card store and snag one of those pink, beribboned pieces of poetry before the rack is stripped bare.

Every year, I dread the ordeal. What if the store runs out - and all that's left is a single dog-eared card addressed "To My Significant Other" or "To the Woman Who is Just Like a Mother To Me"?

So, guys, I'm going to make it easy for you this year. Furniture Consignment Gallery's three stores are loaded with quality consignment furniture that your wife and mother will love.

Our Plymouth store has just put lots of items on final markdown, among them a cherry server with a baker's rack by Drexel Heritage as well as other pieces by Domain, Pennsylvania House, Ethan Allen and Widdecomb. For someone who is setting up a home office, we've got a beautifully detailed black corner desk with hutch by Habersham.

In Hanover, we have dining room sets in every price range and in many different styles. We have a double pedestal "birdcage" table with a banded inlay by Henredon. The three leaves allow the table to extend to 162 " - and it comes with table pads to protect the gleaming mahogany finish.

Our Chestnut Hill store is chock full of one-of-a-kind pieces that would make for a memorable gift. We have a seven-drawer Italian lingerie chest with brass accents and a rose marble top for $1,199. Also on the showroom floor is a Louis XV bombe chest with delicate brass drawer pulls and a marble top.

Stop by one - or all three - of our stores. I'm sure you'll find something in one of our showrooms to make your significant other smile. With a gift from Furniture Consignment Gallery, you won't even need a card.

"Look at the detail!" one of our regular customers exclaimed stopping short right in front of a newly arrived item, an Eldred Wheeler Collector's Edition Bonnet Top Secretary.

No wonder. With 12 small drawers, 14 secret drawers, and exquisite fan carvings, the secretary is an extraordinary example of the art of woodworking. What caught her eye, though, were the two small and delicate shelves of wood that slid smoothly out from beneath the cabinet doors. "What are these?"     

"Those are the candle slides," Ron, our showroom manager and furniture expert, explained. "Before electricity, you would need a candle near to provide light for your work."

The Eldred Wheeler piece is a reproduction, but it tells a lot about the way of life in Massachusetts in the 1700s. Woodworkers spent days - even weeks - on the fan carvings and details. Hidden drawers and subtle pigeonholes were a secret delight for the owner.

Which got me thinking.  In last week's blog, I killed off Queen Anne, declaring that once-popular furniture style now out-of-date. Pieces as exquisite as the Eldred Wheeler are rare - and so expensive that few but the most ardent collector can afford them. So what's next for the rest of us?

We are at a crossroads. We're taller and fatter. We aren't farmers and small-town laborers like they were in the 1700s. We roam the planet like hunter-gatherers now. We shed belongings - and buy more - with every move. We like quality but we won't pay for it.  

What does that mean for furniture? Are we happy to live on chunks of foam wrapped in polyester? Has furniture become the new Dixie cup: disposable? Are we still willing to pay for quality, detail, character and art? What do you think?

Until her death in 1714, Queen Anne ruled Great Britain for a dozen years. Hers was a short but dismal reign. She suffered from gout, watery eyes, multiple miscarriages and morbid obesity. She was an unlovely woman - who nonetheless gave her name to a very lovely style of furniture.

Ironically, the Queen Anne style is all about sleek legs and delicate curves - quite unlike the corpulent monarch with the legendary appetite. For three centuries, her furniture enjoyed a modest and enduring popularity. Then for some reason, in the 1980s, Queen Anne furniture became the style statement of a generation of baby boomers.

Every leading American furniture-maker filled its showrooms with glossy tables made of cherry wood perched on shapely cabriolet legs. For a decade, Queen Anne ruled the roost. Walk into any four-bedroom colonial in an upscale community and you would find a predictable scene: Queen Anne tables, chairs, desks, lowboys, breakfronts and highboys, some decorated with shells and others with acanthus leaves.

Fast forward to 2014, and the furniture with the can-can legs has lost its appeal.

The Queen is dead - for at least the next century. That's what our customers are telling us. The few pieces we have taken on consignment in the last year typically spend a few lonely weeks, ignored, on the showroom floor before we return them to their owners.

Still, some people are loyal royalists. One woman called us last week asking if we would take fifty pieces of furniture she'd bought in 1986. The stuff was in pristine condition. Protected from the sun, the flame-stitched cushions hadn't faded a bit. No ding or dent married those cabriolet legs. But I had to tell her the Queen wouldn't be lying in state at FCG. She was crushed at the news.

I have strong opinions – and so does my wife, Diana. When we disagree, the staff runs for cover. After nearly ten years of running a business together, we’re pretty good at verbal sparring. Our arguments can be intense, animated and loud. (Hey, I’m Italian!)  At the end of the day, though, we always remember Rule #1: Don’t take the business home. 

One topic is sparking debate – and we haven’t resolved it yet. Does staging help sell a home? Staging is the art of editing and arranging furniture and eliminating clutter to make a house more appealing to buyers. Professional stagers buy or rent furniture and accessories such as art to enhance a home. Many of Boston’s top stagers are customers of FCG.

Since we’re selling our own home – and we have three stores of furniture from which to borrow – this is just theoretical. I’m in favor of staging. Here’s why:

• I think reducing clutter allows buyers to visualize how they would live in your home. I think buyers find clutter distracting, cementing the idea that it’s your home – not theirs.

• I think that bright, neutral paint and lots of lighting make a house more appealing to potential buyers – even if they are privately planning to paint the dining room a deep shade of eggplant later.

• I think less is more. Scaling down the furniture makes a house look bigger, in my view, giving buyers the impression they are getting more house for their buck.
•  I think it is important to put those antiques in storage and update the furniture because most buyers, especially younger ones buying a starter home, want a more modern look.

Diana disagrees. Here’s her view

• Clutter is irrelevant. She believes potential buyers are capable of seeing beyond the framed kids’ art and the hockey gear and imagining themselves in a home.

•  She says buyers can imagine a room emptied of its weary-looking wing chairs and filled with their own chic furniture. In fact, she believes, pandering to some imagined buyer’s style preference is a waste of time, money and energy.
  

• Staging is fake – and hard on sellers. She insists that buyers’ decisions about which house to buy are based more on complex issues such as the size and layout of a house, the neighborhood, the yard, the town, and the school system. You can’t gussy those up with staging. 

So what do you think of our great debate? You can flee – like our staffers – or you can jump in and let us know. Take our survey about staging and we’ll post the results for you in a couple of days.

"It's like having a baby." That's how my wife Diana described the opening of our third store last year. She nailed it with that metaphor. Opening a store means months of anticipation punctuated by bouts of intense anxiety. There are predictable checkpoints along the way - and a few unexpected surprises thrown in for good measure. And once the new addition is here, you can't imagine life without it.

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of our showroom in Plymouth. Diana and I and our three boys cut the blue ribbon at our opening, surrounded by family, friends and staffers. Then, we turned the enterprise over to our hardworking and ambitious team.

How that team came together sometimes seems like a mystery. Denise knocked on the door when we were painting the vast, empty store. She walked in, grabbed a brush and never left. Donna brought a combustible energy and a great sense of design. Rebecca contributed her superb artistic skills, photographing every item for the website. Nick, Cory and Tevin, our movers, fill the showroom with furniture week after week - and help customers fit their treasures into their vehicles.

And, of course, there's Brad, showman extraordinaire. He moved from sunny Florida to snowy Massachusetts to pursue his lifelong dream of managing a furniture store - and to indulge in some sibling rivalry. His twin brother, Ron, manages our store in Hanover. Over the past year, Brad has created a team, a culture and a shopping experience as exciting as any in the furniture business.

Anniversary Sale Details:

• The Sale Starts Now and ends at 5PM on Sunday March 2, 2014.
• Customers can take 10% off the current price in any of our three showrooms.
• Items scheduled for a 10% markdown during the sale event are not eligible for further discounting.
• Final Markdown Items are not eligible for further discounting.
• Purchases from multiple showrooms can be bundled together into a single delivery for an extra fee.
• Our doors open at 10AM today. The phones are ready, staffers will be on hand and the stores are packed with beautiful pieces.

Come celebrate with us!

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

Despite the arctic cold, we're starting to see a predictable harbinger of spring. Realtors and home-staging professionals are flocking to our showrooms. They're hunting for furniture and accessories to update the homes they hope to sell in the next few months.

Some 40% of home sales occur between March and June. Homeowners are busy prepping for that brief window of opportunity. The smartest ones know that clever staging can boost the selling price significantly.

Staging is an art. And since we work with some of the best in Boston, I can offer some of their secrets:  

First, update your lighting. Cheap fixtures and lamps from the 1970s are a big turn-off for buyers. So are cracked or stained lampshades. New lamps and shades bring immediate warmth and style into a home - and that's a purchase that won't put a big dent in your wallet. Our showrooms offer lots of choices from classic to trendy.

Put things in scale. Homeowners often roll out a rug that is too small for the room. Maybe it was a quality hand-me-down from a relative or they got a bargain at the rug store, and they figured that something on a bare floor was better than nothing. News flash: a small rug in a big room is like a postage stamp on a lawn. It shrinks the room visually. We have rugs in all sizes. If you don't find what you need in our stores, then softly gleaming hardwood floors are a better bet.

De-clutter. Pack up the dust-collecting tchotchkes. Nothing says Grandma like an army of Hummels. That could be a turn-off to the thirtysomethings looking for a chic nest in which to start their families. Also, take a hard look at your furniture. If potential buyers have to hold their breath to squeeze around a king-size mattress in the master bedroom, you've got a problem. Get rid of furniture that overpowers a room.

One last tip: beware the curse of IKEA. We've all committed a few sins in the name of frugality. Say you bought some particleboard furniture a few years ago. You hauled the box home and assembled it yourself. Now, you're selling your house. Keep in mind that nothing depreciates an upscale home faster than cheap furniture. Just a few quality pieces -- bought on consignment - would reinforce the concept of quality in your home.

I'm a chair snob. I admit it and I have learned to live with it. My goal is to turn you into a chair snob, too. Because I've had it with chairs that bend and break like matchsticks.

Making furniture is a difficult business these days. Competitive pressures have driven many old-line American manufacturers out of business. The survivors are being driven into a corner. To compete, many have shifted manufacturing to Asia, where they are using cheap labor and cheap materials. The result, unfortunately, is a cheap chair.

In our educational series, we're going to show you how to get the best buy for your furniture dollar when it comes to chairs. Once you've learned the telltale signs of cheap manufacturing, you'll never be a furniture-showroom sucker again.

Tip-off #1: high pressure laminate, or HPL. This is created by taking layers of wood products or wood waste - like sawdust or chips - and molding them under high pressure into a sheet of "wood." Is it wood? It's sort of like the difference between real cheese and Velveeta. HPL is the Velveeta of furniture.

How can you tell the difference between solid wood and HPL? Look at the back of the chair - from the side. You'll notice that the wood appears layered. Strips - some of them speckled - appear pressed together. HPL isn't nearly as strong or durable as solid wood.

Tip-off #2: the hex screw. That's a simple screw with a hexagonal indentation. Inexpensive to make and quick to install, hex screws are often shipped with furniture that you assemble yourself. Or, they may be used in furniture that has been manufactured overseas but assembled in the U.S. The problem is, hex screws loosen very easily. Over time, the chair gets wobbly and prone to breaking.

Not all furniture manufacturers have abandoned quality. Some are still making chairs with solid wood and screws built to last, but they will be expensive. You'll pay up to $1,000 for a high-quality chair. One made from quality wood but assembled overseas will cost $300 to $500. An HP-and-hex screw chair may cost $100 to $250.

In our showrooms, we carry chairs in all price

"Daaaaad! We NEED a treeeeeee!"

This is the fourth time my five-year-old has reminded me of that grim chore. Oops, I mean fun family activity.

Christmas tree decorating has never been my thing. When I was growing up, my family had a fake tree. I hated that thing. So apparently did my father. My mother relieved him of tree duty as soon as we kids were old enough to understand and marvel at his muttered curses. So, as the oldest, it became my job to drag that accursed thing out of the attic and assemble it every December.

The tree was jammed in a box as soggy as day-old cornflakes. Stiff metal branches stuck out of the box, threatening to lance my rib cage or pierce an eyeball. After wrestling the box out of the attic, I had to figure out how to put the tree together so it vaguely resembled something in nature. That was a challenge. All the instructions were tattered and looked like, Tucker, our family dog had mistaken the tree diagram for the actual tree. Once, the tree resembled a large prickly green mushroom.

Next came the untangling of lights. That's when I paid for my sins of the previous year: snatching the lights off the tree, wadding them up haphazardly, and shoving them into the attic - along with the dissected tree - on New Year's Day. Over the summer, small attic demons wove the lights into massive snarls. I call it Satan's Christmas crochet. It's true. Ask any dad.

Imagine my relief when I was relieved of tree decorating duty this year at Furniture Consignment Gallery. Instead, we had a contest: staffers would compete to decorate a tree in each of our three stores. The results are stunning.

The theme of Hanover's tree is Boston Strong. Wrapped in a gauzy red and white garland, the tree boasts red, white and blue ornaments and a flamboyant topper crafted out of a dozen little American flags. Plymouth's theme is nautical. Staffers at that store hand-painted tiny anchors and ships as ornaments and a sturdy rope winds its way around the tree. Some 250 tiny nautical flags flutter from every branch. Proudly topping the tree is a miniature three-masted schooner.

Chestnut Hill chose to celebrate fine hand-made furniture for its theme. At the top of the tree is a color photo of a gorgeous mahogany breakfront filled with china. Wrapped in sparkling white lights, the tree is laden with photograph ornaments of exquisite chairs, bureaus, tables and desks.  

So I hereby declare the contest has begun and you, our customers, are the judges. Vote for your favorite tree here in our newsletter on our Facebook page - but I urge you to visit our stores in person to see their handiwork. There you'll see proof that our staff is creative, resourceful and full of holiday spirit.

And just between us, let's hope they don't ask me to take down the trees.