A New Old Business

I'm really not sure what started my love of antiques, but I've been a big fan of antiques for many years.  The first piece of antique furniture that I remember purchasing was a 1940s console tv cased in a beautiful dark wood.  It was SO heavy because it still had all of the hardware inside it, although, of course, there was no way to get it into working condition again.  It was just so beautiful, and at $25, it was a steal!  I just had to have it.  I remember this shopping trip well too because it was one of my favorite memories of hanging out with my grandma.  Honestly, thinking back now, I think what inspired me to want this tv was Caroline in the City.  I remember seeing an antique tv in her living room that had been repurposed to contain a lighted fish tank and I thought that it was so cool.  I guess I had aspirations of doing something like that with this tv.  So I bought it.

When I bought this tv, I was still in college and was just starting to really get interested in decorating.  At the time, I was also a HUGE Gone with the Wind fan, and my bedroom was GWTW themed with all of the prints and collectibles that I had from the movie.  At the time, I decided to put one of my prints from the movie behind the tv glass and used it as another prop in my bedroom.  I used it like this for probably like 4 years.

One day I decided that the tv would make a cool cat condo, so I gutted it (which was NOT an easy task... I got many big gashes and shed blood doing this), bought a perfectly sized floor pillow, attached a cat toy, rigged up a way to secure the dials onto the tv, and wha-la... a pretty darn cool cat bed was born... and so was my first "Antique Reincarnated".

I loved the process of finding cool antiques that fit into my decor and repurposing them to fit my modern day needs, so I kept doing it.  Soon after this new-found interest was born, I attended my first antique auction.  I bought seriously like 3-4 carloads of things (and my car was a Ford Explorer).  I was hooked, and now I was prepared with many materials that I needed to go full force with my hobby.

I continued to attend auctions and buy lots of antiques with my ultimate dream of opening a quaint little downtown store full of my reincarnated antiques.  I eventually opened my first "booth" at an antique store (see pic at left... my stuff is the 4 shelves in the center).  I decided to call my booth "Antiques Reincarnated" with the tagline of "giving new life to things of the past".   I had a logo, custom price tags, and everything!  I had lots of old pictures frames that I made into chalkboards or magnet boards, trays made into clocks, antique postcards and photos made into new greeting cards (this one was actually one of my top sellers), glass bottles made into bathroom soap containers, and more.  Some things that I didn't actually "reincarnate" myself, I put suggestions for new uses for the item on the tag.  Part of my dream store included selling items with suggestions for reincarnating them yourself, and even having a workshop night in the store when you could come in and work on your items with my help (using my tools, getting tips from me, etc.).  All of this was stirring in my head way before most people had even heard of HGTV or Shabby Chic.

Having a full-time, well-paying job and no other income, I didn't have the money or time to make my dream shop come true, so I continued with Antiques Reincarnated the best that I could.  I rented a space at a local antique show and sold my goods there, and I rented an additional 12' x 12' floor space at another antique store.  I only did the one show, but I kept my antique store space going for about 4 years, and closed it when I just couldn't keep up with it anymore because Annabelle was born.  Even though I had a pretty successful yard sale nearly 2 years ago now, I still have lots of my antique stock, and most of them are in my garage or attic.  I had aspirations of posting on ebay the things that I didn't sell at the garage sale, but that never happened.  Fast forward to today...

I have decided to create an etsy account and bring Antiques Reincarnated back to life. :)  Creating the account is as far as I've gotten, but I still have the stock so I just need to spend a weekend getting pictures taken, writing up the posts for my goods, and actually posting them.  I don't expect to be rolling in the dough from this, but anytime you can make a little extra cash doing something you enjoy, it's a good thing.  I'll letcha know when my store is up and running.