My Latest Secondhand Décor Scores

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

One of the most exciting things about moving into a new house is the fact that you have new spaces to fill. Even if you purchase a home that’s similar in size to your old one, there are bound to be nooks and crannies that need some special piece of furniture or décor that has to be unique to that room. Our new home is slightly bigger than our old one, and I also sold a ton of our existing décor before moving, so I had plenty of reason to hit the antique stores after getting settled post-move. Keep scrolling to see the secondhand lighting, furniture, and art that I recently scooped up for our new home. First I’ll share photos of the items in store, and then I’ll show where they ended up in our home—kind of like a “Where are they now” type of story!

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

After getting our big gray sectional couch settled in its new space, I realized that I had plenty of room for two side tables—one on either side. I never had the space to do that at our old ranch, so this was really exciting! And, of course, new side tables meant I had the excuse to buy new table lamps, too. I bought the pair of wooden tables you see pictured above for about $40 from Eclectic Retro in Staunton, Virginia, and the matching mid-century ceramic table lamps from Staunton Antiques Center. I really love the height and formal flair these four pieces give the oversized space.

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and DécorSecondhand Mid-Century Furniture and DécorSecondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Another thing I had room for in this house that I didn’t at our old one was a dining room hutch. I dreamed of finding something chunky and wooden from the 1960s or ’70s, but I ended up finding something a tiny bit newer from Heyday Antiques in Charlottesville. We think this piece is from the ’80s, which is fine by me as an ’80s child myself. I love the classic mid-century-inspired lines. It feels very Scandinavian to me, although you know I don’t have any kind of restraint, so I didn’t style it very authentically to minimalist Scandi style. I adore having all of that extra space for display of my favorite ceramics, books, and serving pieces.

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and DécorSecondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Art is undoubtedly one of my very favorite things to look for when antique shopping. I don’t really have room for more art, but I just can’t help myself when I see a beautiful secondhand print, painting, or drawing—especially when it’s a portrait. The female portrait painting you see above is an original and cost less than $40 from Heyday. I know it might cause people to balk, but I ended up painting the frame and a tiny bit of the unpainted canvas because I thought the dark frame and hand-painted gold border distracted from the art. Now that it’s finished with a soft minty green paint color, the art piece feels just right for me and my newly completed art studio.

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and DécorSecondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Our new home has two fairly large living rooms in it, which means that we have space to really spread out our furniture. I have a number of side chairs in each living room that don’t have to be pushed up against a wall, which is really nice for lounging, but does present some problems when it comes to placing side tables. They have to be small enough to float in place without being too small or else they risk looking disjointed. When I spotted this handled $15 round table at Habitat Restore in Charlottesville, I knew it was the perfect solution. I have it sitting next to our vintage blue chair in the sunroom now, but eventually plan to move it to the living room where we have a new swivel chair coming that’s not near any other type of tabletop. My one parameter? That it be able to hold a wine glass. This tiny table does so with ease.

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

When I was pre-move brainstorming what types of functions I wanted our two extra bedrooms to serve, it eventually occurred to me that I had the space for a dedicated art studio. You may have caught that room makeover recently, but if you didn’t you can click here to take the tour. At any rate, I decided to add a small lightweight table under the window to act as a drawing desk. This one cost $150 from Staunton Antiques Center. I feel like it might have been a tad overpriced considering the fact that it was light enough for me to carry practically one-handed all through downtown Staunton to get to my car, but since it’s not my everyday work desk, I figured lightweight was all I really needed. I love the mid-century style of it!

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

One more Staunton Antiques Center find was this wooden 3-drawer dresser. I love the pint-size scale of it, and that it perfectly fits my printer on top. I use it in my home office as a printer stand, but also as linen storage since our main bedroom is just on the other side of the wall from my office.

This is actually only a fraction of the secondhand scores I’ve invested in over the past three months, but if I did a thorough inventory, this post would be miles and miles long. If you like reading these “Where are they now” types of story posts, let me know in the comments, and I’ll be sure to share more of them as I continue my hunt for vintage finds that fit our new home to a “T.”

Secondhand Mid-Century Furniture and Décor

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Two New Living Room Paint Colors

Two New Living Room Paint Colors

I’ll tell you what…Glancing back and forth between the first and second photos of today’s post gives me so much satisfaction. I will never, ever get over the power of paint! Let me back up a second, though. When we moved into our retro ranch back in November of last year, we were surprised to find that we actually didn’t mind the pistachio green living room paint color that we had inherited from the previous homeowners. It went pretty well with our existing green couch and all of my houseplants, so we decided not to touch it for a bit. You can see the color below before we moved our furniture in (see it with furniture on my Instagram feed here).

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color IdeasMid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

I’m sure you can tell from those photos above that the color was a little bit on the oversaturated side (click here for a color match that looks similar to me if you like it). My initial thought was that the green felt very true to the 1960s style of our home, but I ended up finding very old photos of the house from a previous listing online, and realized that the green was anything but original. In fact, the room was first painted a beige cream color to match the trim work. After finding out that the paint wasn’t actually from the 1960s, my opinion started to shift ever so slightly.

The other thing that rocked the boat for me was the fact that John and I had been hard at work painting just about every other room in the house around the living room. We were slowly putting our stamp on the house with the paint colors we actually wanted to use, and our whole home color palette was emerging with each painting project that we completed. The more color we added, the less that green coordinated, so I ultimately decided it was time to change it.

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color IdeasMid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

John pushed back pretty hard at first when I brought up the idea of painting over the green, but the more I explained to him that the green just wasn’t a good fit with our big picture plans, the more willing he was to give repainting a go. Happily, now that the project is finished he loves the new paint colors I chose and doesn’t miss the old green color one bit. I couldn’t agree more!

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

After looking through multiple paint swatches picked up at Sherwin-Williams, I decided on a light neutral tone called “Origami White” for the majority of the room. I had initially planned on painting the entire room that color, but I just recently completed a wallpapering project in the entry, and I felt like we needed a contrasting color on the fireplace wall to balance things out (I’m hiding most of the wallpaper for now until the official reveal, but you can see a big sneak peek of it below).

I happened to get a promotional email from Sherwin-Williams about their color of the month, “Homburg Gray,” and I loved the look of it so much that I decided to grab it for our feature wall without even testing it. Now that it’s finished, the rich, dark painted fireplace wall is actually my favorite part of the space, so I’m really glad I decided to spontaneously go bold. Let me know what you think of our new paint colors in the comments! Would you have left the green, or are you as excited about our new paint as we are?

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

Mid-Century Living Room Paint Color Ideas

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