Furniture Consignment Gallery Blog

"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.

After the big two-day, tax-free furniture sale last weekend, Diana and I were exhausted. We closed up the store, looked at each other and realized we were thinking the same exact thought: Let's go to the beach!

Sunday night offered perfect weather night for a barbecue on the beach. As the sky darkened and dozens of bright meteors streaked overhead, we blackened some burgers on the grill and roasted marshmallows with our three boys. Just as we were settling in for a night of quiet stargazing, four cars roared up. Out poured twenty college kids.

They cranked up the music, opened a cooler of beer and lit a fire. With skills finely honed by spring break, they managed to construct a party scene in seconds - or so it seemed to me. Suddenly, our peaceful evening with the kids seemed in contrast, well, boring.

"How did we get here?" I asked Diana, looking enviously towards the party. "We used to be over there." I mean, it didn't seem that long ago. We were carefree. We had a dozen friends who could dance in the sand all night without worrying about work on Monday. Now, we have a business, a mortgage, three kids. 

Diana glanced at me with an unmistakable expression. It said, wordlessly: "You are such a dumbass."

"They're over there, Jay, trying to figure out how to get over here," she observed, turning to watch our three boys chasing each other across the beach. "And with whom."

I laughed. I knew she was right, but I wanted to yell to them, "Stay over there!"  In a few hours, I would be back to work trying to figure out how to arrange 50 plus deliveries from the weekend sale, answering e-mails, registering kids for fall sports and hollering at them to finish their summer reading.

Then, an older couple strolled by both of our campfires, chuckling at the awkward antics of the teenagers, then nodding genially at us. They looked content. Our stage in life is a lot of work, but as the kids ran back to our fire, shivering with beach towels, I know that we will remember these times as the good old days.

"Hey, kid!"

I heard a raspy voice holler across the showroom, and, though it had been nearly a decade, I recognized it right away. For those of you who aren't from Boston, everyone is a "kid"-- even a soon-to-be-40 business owner. You gotta love this town.

Out in the parking lot, I spotted his red truck and the memory came rushing back.

Years ago, in the midst of a move to a new home, he'd heaped a lot of furniture into the flat-bed and hauled it to our store in Hanover. Late in the day, after we'd closed up shop, he decided to bring one more piece: a massive pine hutch. 

By then, we'd gone home. Our doors were locked. So he unloaded the hutch behind the store. It was a warm and cloudless summer evening. He figured there was no harm in leaving his hutch outside for one night.

The following morning, he rumbled into the store. "Hey, kid," he asked. "What do you think of the hutch?"

I was puzzled. What hutch?  

"I left it by the back door last night," he said. We went outside. No hutch. By now, his face had registered emotions from skepticism to confusion to shock.  Solid pine, that hutch must have weighed a couple of hundred pounds.

After sleuthing out back, we turned up some clues:  tire tracks, boot prints, sawdust, and a bent blade from a Sawzall. The thief apparently had spotted the hutch behind the store, took off to get some tools and returned with a versatile cutting monster capable of, say, slicing through a Boeing 747. Adding insult to injury, he plugged his Sawzall into my outlet!

After hacking the hutch in two, the thief loaded it in his truck and took it home. The hutch was gone.

That was our first - and only - grand theft at FCG. Both of us were robbed. There was no money to be made for either of us on this piece. I felt badly, but he knew we shared the loss together. 

Despite the snafu with the hutch, my old customer had had a good experience with Furniture Consignment Gallery, and he was back to do business again - after we'd shared some laughs remembering the hutch-hacking.

Seeing him reminded me also that we are in a true partnership with our consignors. Most often we win together as items sell quickly and for good money. We split those sales with each other. But sometimes, things don't work out as planned and we share those pitfalls together too. I really like the fact that when you do business with us here at Furniture Consignment Gallery, we are in it together.

I've been pounding holes in the pavement lately, trying to keep the inches off my waist. Hey, I'm Italian! I like to eat. I haven't lost a pound yet, but at least there was a little less gut to suck as I was squeezing through a maze of furniture in one woman's house this week.

"Jay, help me!" she said. "I feel like I am suffocating!"

 She'd just downsized into a tidy little cottage, bringing with her a dining room set that would have been worked well in Buckingham Palace. Seriously, it was stunning, but massive. No wonder she was claustrophobic.

Clearly, the furniture had to go. So off it went to our store in Chestnut Hill.

This spring, the housing market is booming, and our phones are ringing off the hook. After years of stagnation, homeowners are trading up, down and all around with glee. And the furniture that worked so well in that four-bedroom colonial suddenly looks out of place in the seaside villa.

For us at Furniture Consignment Gallery, this is great news. Our stores are brimming with a huge variety of furniture. Some of our consignors are seasoned movers; they've measured the new house and they know that some pieces have to go. We're also getting frantic calls from some who procrastinated about their move only to realize there's no way that comfy sectional will fit the new family room.

For those of us making the rounds in the truck, this means long days, a lot of heavy lifting and, sometimes, a bit part in the general drama of life. Michelle Obama was in Boston earlier this week for a fundraiser, which snarled traffic for more than an hour on Commonwealth Avenue. Eventually, cabbies and other drivers gave up honking and got out of their cars to socialize and watch us fill the truck with furniture.

A young bride-to-be was disassembling her bachelorette apartment, preparing for her wedding - and a move to a new home a thousand miles away. "Getting married!" she told the crowd as we loaded the truck, piece by piece. "Going to Chicago!" When we were done, the crowd cheered - for her, for us, for new beginnings.

Some days, I really love this job. 

She was a hiring manager for a large firm, and she was in a hurry to get to work. But first, she had a job to do. Perched primly on an armchair wearing chic business attire and holding a note pad, she was in full interview mode.  

I was there to evaluate her fine furniture and to outline a strategy to market them between our three showrooms. In-home meetings are something that I like to do with customers who have several items that they need to sell. This business woman had no time to market her furniture on her own and she wanted to know that whoever sold them on her behalf, would not require management oversight.  

"Who," she demanded, "is your target market?"

We have been asking ourselves this question for nearly 10 years now as we continue to grow our business. And I love how we have been able to expand the answer to include all kinds of homeowners. 

"Our target market is folks who know and appreciate fine furniture," I told our consignor to be. "They may be outfitting their primary home, a second home at the beach or a city condo.  Either way, they are looking for furniture at a discount - without sacrificing quality!"

Get me started on that topic, and it is easy for me to get carried away.

"Here's how it works with our three stores," I barreled on.  "Chestnut Hill is a kind of high-end boutique where you can find lots of specialty pieces such as dining tables, china cabinets or exquisite accents. In Hanover, our biggest store, you'll find a huge selection of bedroom, dining and kitchen sets, furniture for the living room - even pieces for the man cave. Plymouth, our newest store, has a great selection of casual pieces especially for those looking to furnish a vacation home. Whether you are outfitting a city condo, a colonial in the 'burbs or a cottage on the shore, you'll find what you need at one of our stores."

She raised her pen, and stopped me in mid sentence. "So when can you come and get these pieces?"

"I live in the Pinehills."

Moments after strolling into our showroom in South Plymouth, these silver-haired ladies and gents manage to work that fact into the conversation. And why not? A Pinehills home is a status symbol for baby-boomers who have worked hard. For 30 years they commuted to and from Boston, put their children through college and endured all of the rigors of life. Living there is an achievement that demands recognition from us youngsters who are buried with everything that comes with raising a family and building a career.  

As I said to one gentleman who lives in this fine community, "you are where we want to be." To which he retorted, "No, you are where we want to be." Well, we would all like our youth back in some shape or form if we knew it would all turn out OK. If you made it to the Pinehills, then trust me, it all turned out OK.  

This vast active adult community is our new neighbor to our new showroom. So howdy, all of you former engineers, stockbrokers, stand out salesman, teachers, nurses and Docs. Now, here are a few tips from my side of the street.

If you haven't bought furniture since 1985, you might now be experiencing some sticker shock. Yes, your dining-room set was a lot less expensive back then, but so was a gallon of gas: 76 cents in 1985 vs. $3.52 this week at the Shell station in Plymouth.

So after you hit the furniture merry-go-round, and feel the pinch of a fixed income minus the real estate taxes, insurance, car payments on the Lexus, condo and greens fees; spending money on new furniture can cause some sharp internal pain. Fret not neighbor, we invite you to come on in and wander around our new showroom. We feature quality consignment furniture made by elite craftsmen. We have the brand names you trust - at a fraction of the price you will pay at the major furniture stores.

But here's the bad news. You want to consign some of the furniture that filled that four-bedroom colonial you recently sold in the suburb with the good schools? That dark pine bedroom set that seemed so chic when you were a young buck? We can't sell it for you. And the same goes for your knobby, colonial dining room set, your flame-stitch upholstered chair, and your Queen Anne cherry anything that is circa 1982. They are as outdated as a lavender leisure suit.

On the other hand, if you are a really active retiree and you've got some recently-acquired treasures that don't fit in your new "cottage," come on in. We'll serve up a great consignment deal with just a little envy on the side.

"Dad!" Robbie, my four-year-old, was tugging hard on my coat. I bent over to listen. His blue eyes still have a lot of baby in them, and they locked onto mine. "Dad," he said, urgently and loudly over the noise of the jubilant crowd on Boston's Boylston Street. "I have to go to the bafroom."  

Not now, I groaned to myself. We had a prime viewing spot right at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. My brother, JT, was running. Any minute now, he would be crossing the blue-and-yellow line. His journey to the marathon had been a long and arduous one. I really wanted to be there to cheer for him.

"Yeah, Dad, I'm starving." Cade, my thirteen-year-old, always seems to be hungry now that he's a teenager. I glanced over at my wife, Diana. Maybe we had a few minutes to find a bathroom and grab some hot dogs for our three boys. Besides, my parents were stationed a block or so down the course, also on Boylston Street. They'd alert me with a text if they saw my brother nearing the finish. Diana smiled and nodded as if to say "What can you do?"

Ten minutes later, the boys were munching happily on hot dogs we'd gotten from a vendor on Exeter Street. We were hurrying back to the finish line when suddenly we heard a massive explosion. The street shook beneath our feet. We stopped for moment, confused. Then, a second explosion "It's a bomb!" I shouted to Diana, as we grabbed the boys and started running for cover.

My brother was only a mile away from completing the marathon when the cops diverted him - and thousands of other runners - into Kenmore Square, where they frantically tried to call or text loved ones they feared had been hurt or killed. My family was one of the fortunate ones. We were shaken, but safe. My parents were sitting directly across the street from the site of the second explosion. They were unharmed, but they witnessed the carnage, which has left them deeply distressed.

I can't stop replaying that afternoon in my head. I am sure the terrorists who planned the attack would have been disappointed that we stepped away. After all, we were the target - along with all the hundreds of other families and friends celebrating a race that brings out the very best of the human spirit: courage, endurance, hope.

Our near-miss mirrored the paths of so many others.  The terrorists want us to be believe we should be punished for our way of life and for our freedoms, but the angels hovering at the finish line who were there to guide and protect so many of us, defy all of that logic. There are those who were not as lucky and we pray for their recovery. Now our job is to get back to business.

Ways to help the Recovery

Donate to the official charity of The One Fund Boston, Inc. to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013.

or you can support the Red Cross with blood bank replenishment.

For More info about donating blood in your area please click here.

Can't donate for personal/medical reasons? Click here for alternative ways to help the Red Cross.