I’m nothing if not an egregious, aggressive even, show-and-teller, so here’s my latest vintage haul shot in the not quite done future Game room in the guest cottage. Yes, the walls are clad in reclaimed wood (so pretty!), but the floors are still rough, and no lighting is installed yet. But that didn’t stop us. It’s SO FUN TO SHOOT IN THIS HOUSE. It’s not just the separation from my personal life (which is admittedly so lovely during the summer when kids, dogs, and Brian are all running around), but my entire team is creatively inspired by being able to shoot against new colors, next textures, and we feel the potential of alllll the different backdrops we’ll get in the future. It’s a house designed to be flexible for shooting, and already we are loving it. Recently I had the excuse to shop again (mostly for vintage art) – both my sister’s kitchen and the tiny house lean traditional cottage (not to mention the guest cottage). So I bought a few pieces on FBMP, and as I went to show them off to my team, I realized that there are actually quite a few that you haven’t seen yet, which is just criminal.

I ended up having enough that we separated them into vignettes. These lean a little darker and moodier, which I think look pretty great in this context.

Ok, let’s start with the splurge. This is a vintage art oil painting that I bought from Form & Function, a local Scandinavian vintage shop in Multnomah Village (Portland) that has FANTASTIC pieces with reasonable prices. I believe this was $425, which is a lot, but the colors, the textures, the vibe, the scene, the frame – it’s all so pretty. It hasn’t found a home yet, but I think the guest cottage will be it.

Ok, this one was cheaper, I think $45, that I bought at the Moticello antique mall. I didn’t need it. It was an impulse hoard (which is not recommended! What’s wrong with me?!). I do think that it’s pretty and will find its moment. The frame is a bit busted, but not sure how much I care.

Ok, now the top one was only $45 in a pretty frame, so I think it’s likely newer, made to look vintage, and I fell for it. But the paint has a lot of texture! I think that these dupes are getting so much better (no more just prints or canvas stretched prints). This is going on my sister’s hood in her kitchen, and it works perfectly, so I don’t care if it’s a dupe or not. The lower one is an original, and I thought the colors were pretty and the composition was nice. I bought it to bring down to the Tiny House for styling, so we’ll see if it wins a place in that home (we need a lot of small art there).

These were all in the brighter, happier colorways.

Now this one is a shout-out to Rebecca, who was the stranger that was selling this vintage art piece on FBMP who ended up being a reader (and had the most beautiful home with the BEST thrifted art collection I’ve seen in years). I originally reached out about the boat seascape below, which she listed for $55, and then she sent me a pic of this, which is sooooo pretty, for $85. I’m bringing them down to the tiny house, but admittedly they’ll be hard to give up.

The top left I bought at a vintage store on Orcas Island when we went last summer on our cycling tour (still our favorite couples trip ever), and I think it was expensive, at $100 (I honestly could be totally wrong about where I got it; my memory is NOT what it used to be). The moody blue and green pastel vintage art painting on the bottom right might make its debut in my sister’s kitchen, but we’ll see!

How cute are these nesting platters? They were $45, I think, from Stars antique mall. While I love them stacked and want to keep them together so that I don’t separate siblings, I also think that they might get more use if they were on their own. The top could be next to a bed for jewelry, the second one could be a soap dish, then a fruit bowl, etc. You’ll see them pop up in shoots soon 🙂 Oh, and the platter behind is vintage Pier1, and was $8, so I just grabbed it (I host Easter and love colorful platters).

Fruit And Vegetable Still Lifes

I love a fruit and veggie still life for a kitchen or dining room (or pantry). But one of these is a dupe that I bought for $25 (I thought it was vintage until I saw a couple of them at the store, but I bought anyway). There is something very old school, weird, and simple about people painting vegetables and fruit, likely to learn to paint (colors, shadows, light, etc), so even though it’s not fine vintage art, when the colors are right they make me happy.

Ok, now these were so affordable, $16 and $35 respectively. I thought they were so cool and weird, with bold, unexpected, and totally not “old world” colors. I bought from an antique store, hidden within a ton of studio art. I plan on using them in the guest cottage kitchen – I think it’s the perfect mix of old world in a more contemporary and bold way.

UGH. This one is sooooo good. It’s too big for my kitchen, and I already have that one still life in my pantry, but it’s an oil vintage art painting of a cabbage and turnips (I think) on a newspaper. The colors are fantastic, and you get a real sense of pre-tech simplicity. If the more saturated colors above don’t work in the kitchen, then this will for sure.

The four eggs were actually on one board that I separated (I want to frame them for my kitchen – I LOVE THEM). I bought from Hoppe Shoppe for a pretty penny (I think over $200). But I figure once they are separated and framed, they would have a huge impact. Wait til you see them framed in my kitchen; you’ll see the vision, I promise.

This vintage art piece I bought for very little, I think $20, and I’m not totally convinced I love it, but maybe it just needs the right context?

It’s very mid-century, in a pretty “retro” way. I can’t tell!! The frame is old, and the canvas is dirty. Maybe it will be part of my next Community Warehouse sale (in October) because clearly I’m on the fence about it.

How sweet are these??? These are wicker or some sort of woven natural fiber frames.

They want portraits in them so bad. My kids are refusing to let me do professional paintings of them (which I get, like no tween wants a serious pic of them at this age in their house). We already have portraits of the dogs and the pics, so I don’t know what to put in them! They could be mirrors. Or I could try to find two botanical prints that look great compositionally in an oval. Any ideas?? They were $80 for the pair, which is too expensive to just hoard (I’ve had them for 3 years). But they are super special, so I’m not going to sell or give them away. I know it’s just a matter of time that they’ll find their perfect home (said every hoarder ever).

OK FOLKS. I got duped. I found this one FBMP for $20 over the weekend. I reached out, and they said they were having a garage sale and likely going to sell it that day. I offered $30 for them to pull it aside and let me pick it up. I asked if it was an original, and they said yes. So when Gretchen picked it up, she immediately texted “HomeGoods,” which is our inside code for “looks like vintage art and is a really good dupe, but is likely not”. Back when I almost exclusively shopped at the flea market, I would find myself buying things (like the perfect French twine dispenser) that I would later find at HomeGoods. This is actually a compliment to HomeGoods, but you get my point. It’s fake vintage or fake original. But this one does have a lot of 3-dimensional texture!! It’s also 30×40, so it’s really big!! We “Google-lensed” it, and it came up on a bunch of sites, but most of them were over $1k. So I think it’s a reproduction but a really good one, and I do think I got it for a steal 🙂

The rug was one that I found on the floor of a vintage booth, for $180 I think (it’s a 3×8 runner). It’s gonna be perfect in the guest cottage 🙂

Stay tuned. xx

*Photos by Kaitlin Green