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fromApartment Therapy
3 days agoThe "What Else Do You Have?" Rule Is My Secret to Scoring More Home Finds for Less
Asking sellers about additional items can lead to unexpected finds and better deals on Facebook Marketplace.
No one I know wants to go spend their one wild and magical life being a shill for some billionaire tech asshole, says Shannon, a character in Yesteryear, the buzzy new novel about a tradwife influencer by Caro Claire Burke.
Brittany Antoinette Wilson's dad has been a collector for over 30 years, starting with comics and expanding to baseball caps and sneakers. His sneaker collection, now around 500 pairs, reflects his passion for fashion and appearance.
I call it the tsunami of stuff. It's cresting. There are a lot of baby boomers. America's over-65 population reached 55.8 million in 2020, and an additional 42.4 million are in the 55-64 age group. This adds up to nearly 100 million people who have amassed a large amount of possessions - stuff they bought, stuff they got from their own parents, stuff their kids stuck them with.
"I 'm the most hated man in town," Ray McKelvie told me. The town in question was Clinton, British Columbia, approximately 350 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, on Highway 97. Later, I asked another Clinton resident whether McKelvie's claim was true. She thought for a moment. "Well, there's Joe, who lives in the trailer park," she said. "We don't like him much either. But it's about even."
First, you probably have to rewire the lamp. Unless the seller already did it for you, it's best to rewire any vintage finds so you know they've been safely updated. The process isn't that hard, but you will need to buy the supplies and spend the time to do it correctly.
Picture this: you're knee-deep in renovation dust, crowbar in hand, when something unexpected tumbles from behind century-old plaster. A yellowed envelope? A strange metal box? That moment when your heart skips because you realize you might have just found something extraordinary. For some lucky homeowners, these discoveries turn out to be worth thousands of dollars, transforming a simple home improvement project into an unexpected treasure hunt.
Furniture made from mycelium or algae can decompose in five years, sure, but a well-made antique armoire outlives empires because no one throws it away. Columns takes that logic seriously. Handcrafted in solid oak, natural leather, and horsehair, the pieces are built to last a thousand years, which sounds like marketing hyperbole until you look at the joinery, the hand stitching, and the material choices. This is furniture designed to be inherited, repaired, and remembered.
But this week I spotted an ingenious use for the extras, courtesy of NY-based company Proche Studio. Here's their proposal: Mail in a wool blanket, and they'll give it new life in the form of a great-looking-and uber snug-chore coat, vest, or scarf. I'm particularly smitten by the chore coat, a fresh version of the quilt coats that became popular a couple of years ago, and much, much warmer.