Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

The High Point Furniture Market wrapped up its spring exposition this week. Basically, it’s a six-day party for the interior design industry. Some 80,000 flock to North Carolina for the event every April. Well, it’s a party – and a workout. High Point is the biggest home furnishings trade show in the world. Visitors need a map, a shuttle bus, sensible shoes and a lot of stamina to make their way around hundreds of showrooms full of furniture, rugs, lamps and accessories.

Diana was there, and she came home exhausted but full of insight about the latest trends. Here are her comments:  

This year, the theme is all about “lifestyle.” What does that mean? For one, furniture makers offered clean, crisp, well-organized displays that were so perfect they lulled you into a fantasy. It was like imagining yourself driving your convertible down with the top down on an oceanfront road on a sunny day. You’re living the dream – or at least you can within these displays!

All of it was geared to capture those rare moments when the kids are happy and healthy, and all of life is in perfect harmony. Finally, you don’t have to hold your breath anymore. You can exhale. Isn’t that we all want? We long for those precious, perfect moments to last forever.

Furniture manufacturers spend millions of dollars trying to figure out what you long for in your life. They pay consulting firms wads of cash to try to understand you and your buying habits, so they can help you feather your nest. And if they can’t exactly figure it out, they will dream up a theme.

But there’s a fatal flaw in this manufactured theme. That perfect lifestyle isn’t mine and it likely isn’t yours. My life revolves around three young boys. Yours may include messy teenagers or rambunctious grandchildren. High Point’s elegant mahogany library with the high ceiling and the rolling ladder wouldn’t work for us. My three-year-old would be clinging terrified to the top while his older brothers raced the ladder from one side of the room to the other, shrieking with hilarity. We’d all end up in the emergency room. Disaster!   

Ditto the glass-top dining tables with dove white slipper chairs. That $100-a-yard silk would be covered in peanut butter and jelly within a day. The glass would be smeared with milk. Crumbs would be ground into the $25,000 Aubusson.

  At High Point, the displays are exquisite. The pitch is enticing. Far from the chaos of a house with three growing boys, I’m buying every bit of it. The problem is, the trade show is selling a lifestyle that doesn’t exist for most of us. Maybe even all of us.  

The key to success is to design for the life you live right now – not your fantasy life. We’re practical and pragmatic New Englanders.  We want good jobs, a good education for our children, and communities with good values. We are thrifty and very resourceful. We know quality and we prefer it.

 At Furniture Consignment Gallery, you can design for the life that you live every day. Our showroom is full of furniture and accessories that fit our imperfect – but wonderful – lives.  And you can achieve the look that suits you and your family for less, which leaves more on the budget for the truly important things.

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.

Sitting at the breakfast table slurping my last spoonful of Honey Bunches of Oats, I felt a breeze behind me, then heard the screech of wheels rounding the corner. Based on the fraction of a second between the breeze and the screech, whatever it was that just blasted through the kitchen was moving fast. I whipped my head around to see my nine-year-old son, Collin, racing down the hallway on his roller blades. "Whoa, whoa, no, no, NO!" I hollered after him. "Not in the house!"  

Collin spent a lot of time over school vacation week this holiday with a friend who lives around the corner. Their home is different from ours. They're a hockey family, and we're not talking just tickets to the Bruins. Their house is a rink - with furniture. The kids' rollerblades have worn a groove into the hardwood floors. Doors and walls have weathered more than a few collisions. There might even be some blood. To their credit, our neighbors have raised a brood of great hockey players, but most families choose to put a limit on the amount of fun allowed in the home.

Raising kids to enjoy - but also to respect -- your home and its furnishings is a challenge. We've seen the gamut in our clients' homes. Some couples spend thousands on a mahogany dining room set, then let their children race toy cars on its gleaming finish. Conversely, one newlywed couple is wrestling with the decision of how to furnish the living room for this, their second marriage. He doesn't have children; she has three. He wants formal and fancy; she knows the carnage kids can inflict on furniture. If not managed with care, that situation has disaster written all over it.

So where is the happy medium? How can you satisfy an adult's need for beauty with a kid's desire for fun? It is not easy, but here are some ideas that may help you figure out a solution:

• Give the kids a few areas in the house where they can be kids. We, as parents, should encourage playtime. Even some roughhousing is healthy. Big or small, some part of your home should be dedicated to fun. And when things get a bit out of hand, as my Mother used to holler to us: "Take it out to the front yard!"

• Create a warm, cozy place in your home where you can come together as a family. A place where everybody is comfortable.  A place where you won't trip over toys. A place where kids can snuggle up with Mom and Dad.

• And, yes, your home should have some special items that are meaningful to your family. Maybe they are costly new pieces that create a certain look. Maybe they are treasured heirlooms passed down from parents or grandparents. One of the responsibilities of parenting is teaching kids to treat special possessions - their own and others' - with respect. My Dad would drive me crazy when he would knock my feet off the coffee table. Somehow he could see the fresh scratch on the wall before entering the home from work. We put our dents in our home, but my brothers and I also learned the valuable lesson of respecting the family's hard earned assets.

And here's one last tip. New furniture can be very costly. But there's an alternative for those who value quality furniture -- while also understanding that indoor rollerblading on rare occasions (and snow days) might be necessary. Shop smart. Shop consignment. If you don't mind a tiny scratch or two, you'll find a great selection of quality pieces at Furniture Consignment Gallery in Hanover and now in Chestnut Hill. They didn't have consignment stores like ours when I was growing up. If there had been, I'm sure my family would have been regular visitors.

Somber as undertakers, the couple trekked into our showroom four times in four days. They slipped in through the front door, ignored our cheerful greetings and made a beeline for the section featuring dining-room sets. There, they spent hours grimly examining one particular table and the matching chairs. Our sales associates volunteered their help. The couple brushed them all off abruptly.  

Finally, our most personable – and apparently fearless – associate seized the opportunity as a personal challenge. Ms. Congeniality marched up the staircase to the second floor of our showroom determined to befriend this baffling duo. Downstairs, we took bets on whether she’d get anywhere with “Mr. and Mrs. Meany”.  

“Oh, they aren’t mean at all,” she told us later, after a long chat with the couple. “They are just scared to death.”

Scared? Yes. In fact, they are terrified of decorating their home. Five years ago, the two moved into their home and the place still looks like an vacant warehouse. Paralyzed by fear, they haven’t bought a light fixture for the hallway. The result: a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling.  Walls are bare. Entire rooms are empty.

Now, the holidays are coming and they are looking at the possibility of another graceless meal at the kitchen counter. But the alternative – buying a table and some chairs for the dining room – fills them with abject terror.

We witness such scenes all the time at Furniture Consignment Gallery. Many folks know what they like in furniture, but are afraid their taste is all “wrong.” Some fear making a design mistake with poor choices in color, size or scale. Others search endlessly for the perfect design, without a clear idea of what that might look like.

Often, customers will turn to me and say: “I’m sure your home is beautifully furnished.” Well, the truth is my home is full of the pieces that didn’t sell. There’s a dresser is in our foyer that sat on the showroom floor for over a year; it had been marked down almost to pennies. Finally, I took it home to put it out of my misery. And, believe it or not, we get more compliments on that dresser than almost any other piece of furniture in the house. 

Not everyone has an interior designer on speed-dial. And decorating a bare room can be intimidating. Here are five tips to help you get started:

Break the ice with a small item. Like a sculptor starting with a new block of stone, everything gets easier once you make the first cut. Dive in and buy a lamp or a rug that appeals to you.
After that first decision, things start to fall into place.

Personalize your home. Invest in pieces or furniture or art that matter to you. Loved that safari honeymoon? Display those tribal sculptures and gradually a decorating theme will emerge.  (Think campaign chests and faux fur throws.) Did you inherit a beloved Victorian loveseat from Grandma?  Honor her by using it in your home. How about that sloppy painting your five-year-old hauled home from kindergarten? Frame it! Showcase the personal, the meaningful, and the memorable. That’s the heart of true beauty.

Add some humor to your décor! People are too serious these days. My mom has a sign hanging in her kitchen: “Wine is sure proof that God loves us.” In our own home, my wife and kids have tucked action figures into obscure spots. Those hidden treasures always manage to grab our guests’ attention.  It’s okay to be a bit goofy.  Make your home special for you and your family.

Make a list of what’s important to you. Do you like organization or clutter? Some people feel panicky if things are not in the proper bins. Other feel as though they are in a dentist’s office when things are too orderly.

Relax and look for pieces that make you smile. Your guests can’t help but love a home that reflects a full – and well-lived – life. When my wife, the designer, returns from a job, I typically ask her how things are shaping up at the client’s home. “Good!” she’ll usually say. “It’s not my taste – or yours – but they love it, and that’s what really matters.”