Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

   Cruising in and out of beautiful inlets on a borrowed jet ski, I spent Memorial Day on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, trying to forget about furniture for a day. Suddenly, I caught sight of a big man in a little kayak. His fishing pole was being yanked to the very core of the earth.

     I stopped to watch the struggle and he waved me closer. Already, this was more entertaining than schlepping a chest of drawers down the stairs of the showroom. He said he had been waging war with this fish for over an hour. It was a giant lake trout, he exclaimed, a native of the cold, deep waters of Winnipesaukee. He asked if I could help steady him. The powerful fish seemed intent on toting his little vessel around that massive lake like the shark in the film 'Jaws.'

     I moved in to help, but the fish wiggled free and vanished.  This formerly ecstatic fisherman was now just exasperated and exhausted from his long battle with Moby Dick. He asked me to tow him to shore so he wouldn't have to paddle. Wary of my clumsiness on the jet ski, I hesitated, but finally agreed.

     Within minutes, we were on our way. Turning to check on my new friend, I noticed he was wobbling in my wake. I fumbled with the controls and inadvertently hit the gas, rocketing forward. Instant capsize! He was being hauled home at high speed - completely underwater.

     When I reached the shore, I paused and my new friend swam to the dock, drenched and defeated. Head down, his flooded sneakers squished with every step. Clearly wishing he had never made my acquaintance, he was, nonetheless, a good sport and nodded good bye.  

     As for me, I have managed to overcome every minor annoyance this week by invoking the hilarious visual of that poor schmuck upside down in his kayak while I raced to shore. Mea culpa, man. 

     A warning to all: keep me away from the heavy machinery. That's why I leave the truck driving to our stellar crew Nick or Matt, and I ride shotgun position.

     We all have our place in life. Mine, apparently, is in the showroom.

      When we assumed the reigns at Furniture Consignment Gallery 7 years ago, all of our efforts and energy was focused on serving our local customers. But that's not true anymore. Now, it is global. Consider one of our new customers, Bob, who lives on an island called Hilo in Hawaii, 6,000 miles from Hanover. He found Furniture Consignment Gallery on the Internet, and in our inventory, he discovered the perfect dining room set. Shipping, he conceded cheerfully, would almost be prohibitive, but living on an island in the middle of the Pacific takes a certain can-do attitude and he was up to the challenge, so we sent the set off to a customer we'd only met over email and the phone. Here's what we heard a few weeks later:

Aloha, all!

     The dining set arrived in a total of seven pieces, not 500, as I had feared.  Six thousand miles over road and ocean - with no problems and no breakage - may not be a record, but it impresses me. I am attaching photos of the pieces in their new home with their westward view over the Pacific. The table and chairs look more at home in the land of taro and ahi than in the land of the bean and cod.

Thank you,

Bob

  Only a few weeks later, we got another call from the Pacific Coast. This was from a man who was outfitting a yacht in sunny LA. He was looking for a desk small enough to fit through the door of his stateroom, and thanks to our website, he'd found the perfect piece on the showroom floor in Hanover. Once again, the piece was packed up carefully and shipped across the continent. Here's the note we got from Nick: "What a gorgeous little desk. Looks like it came with the boat! Now, I need a larger dresser!" Thank You, Nick The Internet has rattled every corner of the business world, even ours. Bob and Nick taught us two important lessons. One: Customers will go a long way to find quality and value. Two: No matter how far out we can cast our net, our customer still wants that personal relationship and attention that only a small business can provide.

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.

Hey this is Christa, your friendly, FCG computer nerd and photographer!

We've had some great new features added to our website recently by our team.We've been on the quest of making the site even more user friendly for all of our valued customers! You may have noticed the red price tags. not only are they snazzy to look at but right underneath that tag we now have the next drop down price and the date it will drop down. That brings me to our first tutorial!

TUTORIAL: Email Reminders for Price Drops

This way you can have the computer automatically send you a friendly reminder that that wonderful piece you wanted has dropped to the next price (usually 10% off)! It's really easy to do this:

STEP 1: click the button circled in red below that says "Schedule a price drop reminder"

STEP 2. Type in Your name (this helps keep your important reminder out of that automated spam folder)

STEP 3. Type in the email address you would like to recieve the price update to (make sure it's something you check often so you don't miss out on a great item!)

STEP 4. Click the "Set Reminder" button

STEP:5 Click "OK" to confirm the email subscription to the item

STEP: 6 You should see this screen saying you'll recieve an update the day before the price drop and then you can just click the "Close Window" to continue shopping your heart out.

TUTORIAL: Email an Item to Yourself or a Friend

The other new feature that you may have noticed in your browsing on our site is the "Email a Friend" button. This little gem will help you email a piece you think would be perfect for that friend or relative without having to copy, paste and send the link from your own email.

STEP 1: Click the Purple button that says "CLICK to email This Piece To a Friend"

STEP 2: Type your name (so the recipent knows who sent this awesome piece of furniture gold to them and can thank you later for your brillance)

STEP 3: Type the recepient's email

STEP 4: Write a short message it you'd like about why this is right up their alley or leave it blank, whatever you'd like

STEP 6:Click "OK" to send the message on it's way

STEP: 7 Revel in your greatness of finding that perfect thing for him/her and click "Close Window" to return to your shopping bliss.

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.”