Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

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.

 "Refinish my furniture?! You're going to ruin the value of it!!" I say, exactly what value are we talking about? Antique Road Show has scared the daylights out of us all. We have become hesitant to do anything with pieces we no longer need for fear that we'll be throwing away precious goods worth a fortune on the open market.

Truth be told, if your furniture is not 200-300 years old, in museum quality and has a (historically verifiable) story to go with it, the likelihood that you possess something that is worth a fortune, is not very good. As a result of this, many antique stores have struggled with furniture in the last decade. High priced furniture that is not old enough, or is generally broken down just does not appeal to today's buyer. To this I say: refinish!

Don't be afraid to refinish. If you're tired of looking at your grandmother's game table, consider restoration as an option. You preserve a beautiful piece of history and make it look clean and new. Craftsman can literally do anything with wood, and as a result repair work and a fresh finish can make any piece seem new.

There are certainly a few circumstances when refinishing may not be your best option. If you purchase a home in a wealthy, old, New England town such as Wellesley, Brookline, or Newton and that home comes furnished, you may want to have an auctioneer or an appraiser review each piece before sending it to a local craftsman.

Refinishing your furniture is not something you should feel guilty about. When the restoration process is complete, the end result is more in-line with the look of the product when it was originally built. Years of exposure to oxygen, sunlight, and general wear and tear take a heavy toll on even the most well maintained pieces. The craftsmanship of decades-old furniture is often not found in the cosmetic features. Rather, great craftsman revealed their talents in the attention to subtler details.

 By refinishing your furniture, you allow the time, effort and creative craftsmanship of a long ago furniture maker to live on and persevere. That is why I say: "Refinish!"