About 90 percent of the pieces in my home are vintage, and I'm a ruthless editor. I only live with things that I love. There is not one thing in my home that doesn't have meaning to me.
I'm not really frightened by experimenting - that's the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.
I want to lead the Victorian life, surrounded by exquisite clutter.
Everything I commission - whether it is for me or for a client's home or for a hotel or office - is absolutely unique to that job. I have everything made, or I find vintage and antique pieces at markets and auctions.
I tend to like antique things. Something can be old, but it can be timeless.
I've become obsessed with preserving Shaker furniture. I feel as though every influence in my life, everything I've learned and know, all the money I've made, has come together to take care of it.
My desk is an antique with bookshelves built into the side. I've turned the drawer over to hold a keyboard. We live in a 100-year-old house, and I work in an apartment above the carriage house.
Certainly, Doctor. Let's talk about your chair. Victorian?
I bought two sculptures of two baboons called Lord and Lady Muck on an antique piece of furniture from an art exhibition, and it was quite expensive. It was very expensive, actually - way too expensive.
The architect who first inspired me to follow this profession was Sir John Soane and his Regency home; well, his three homes, now a museum. The place is like an encyclopedia of paintings, antiquities, furniture, sculptures, and drawings.
When I received my first paycheck from my now known day job, I spent it on a period Craftsman chair and a Frank Lloyd Wright-wannabe lamp. With my second paycheck, I bought a stereo.
I have a brass bed that's very 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks.' I got it on eBay. It's from the early 1900s.
Well, my piano's really beautiful. I actually have two pianos. I have a Yamaha upright from the '60s that's blond, wood, and black, and I also have one from the '20s from Chicago - not a well-known brand or anything.
Centuries have not worm-eaten the solidity of this ancient furniture of the mind.
I quite like antiques. I like things that are old and the history they bring with them. I would rather fly to Morocco on an $800 ticket and buy a chair for $300 than spend $1,100 on one at Pottery Barn.
I was looking for some vintage furniture, and I came across this booth where they sold old pictures. This guy didn't just have things in a box; he had really curated his collection. Each image was like this little folk masterpiece.
The seventeenth-century baby slept, as his nineteenth-century descendant does, in a cradle. Nothing could be prettier than the old cradles that have survived successive years of use with many generations of babies.
Everything in my room was old and faded, but I loved that about it. It felt like there might be secrets in the walls, in the four-poster bed, especially in that music box.
I was going to the flea markets to buy furniture. It was getting done the way it was getting done - on a small scale and with a lot of soul and heart and risk. We did fashion like fashion was done before - spontaneously, with joy and freedom, and that's what created our identity.
Eighteenth century American furniture and the design of the architects Greene and Greene are my special love.
When I was a kid, all I knew was that I felt more comfortable sitting in one chair than in another. And now I realize it was because one chair was older. I still respond directly to the age of things.
People rich enough to redecorate every 10 months are certainly careless with antique furniture. I found four 1760 French side chairs, tapestry seats intact. Claiming them proved easier than persuading any cabdriver to transport the things.
I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!
I love old architecture. I love collecting furniture, mixing really earthy things with the very polished. I don't come from an interiors background, so I'm not an expert. I just enjoy going to antiques shows and finding interesting things.
I write in an old-school paneled study in the middle of a large farmhouse in rural Iowa. I have pine floors, a big cherry desk, and a small window. The room is cluttered with papers and books and gifts from friends.
