Decorating with flea market finds
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By Alma Gaul | Thursday, July 03, 2008 |
Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES Dick and Kathy Potter hold a photo of Kathy’s great-grandparents. Kathy admires her great-grandmother, who moved from Belgium and married a man she hadn’t met, her brother-in-law’s brother, because her parents wouldn’t let her come to America without a husband to support her. Buy this Photo
You can see why children like to drop by Dick and Kathy Potter’s house in Moline.
Filled with vintage collectibles — old metal toys, sparkly costume jewelry and jars of buttons — visiting the home is like visiting a museum, only better because Kathy lets you pick things up and touch them.
Adults like to visit the house, too, because it’s full of Americana, things they remember from the homes of their parents and grandparents.
With all the inventory, you might think Kathy has been buying stuff all her life. But, no, she began only a little more than 10 years ago, when she and Dick — each with two children — were about to be married and bought the big old house to give them room for their blended family.
“I guess it was the house,” she says of her collecting hobby. “I felt like it needed things. And once you start buying, it really is an addiction.”
It’s not that the circa-1907, Victorian-era house was a blank canvas ready for decorating. It needed lots of work, and the couple has spent years rehabbing it — all while working, raising their children and, yes, collecting.
Now that the house is just about finished and their children are grown and gone, the couple has more time (and money!) to devote to browsing flea markets and shops. Anytime they travel, they make a point to drive the two-lane roads, stopping at stores along the way.
Kathy’s favorite “regular” place is the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) store on Kimberly Road in Davenport. “It always has stuff,” she says. She also shops at Goodwill stores, Salvation Army thrift stores and Country Fair Mall in Coal Valley, Ill.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason to buy anything new,” she says. Her strategy is especially apt nowadays when money is tight in many households and people are trying to be more “green.”
Potter buys things she likes and uses them to decorate by creating vignettes, or arrangements, of the items throughout every room, including entryways, bathrooms and hallways.
At first, Dick didn’t know what Kathy was going to do with all the stuff she was buying, but now he sees that there is a method behind the madness and enjoys the “hunt” for certain items almost as much as she does.
“Now I don’t ask anymore,” he says. “I know she’ll turn it into something neat.”
Kathy also uses her finds in practical ways. Embroidered tablecloths, for example, serve as curtains, and faux pearl necklaces and glass doorknobs serve a new function as tiebacks.
The couple’s furniture also is “pre-owned,” either purchased at flea markets or second-hand stores, or handed down in their families. They sing the praises of Carleton Upholstery in Moline, where they take pieces to see whether they are worth saving and, if they are, to have them redone.
A chair in their front parlor is upholstered in old drapery fabric, for example.
Several of Kathy’s collecting categories are among Country Home magazine’s “top 10” list of currently hot collectibles, including sewing notions, boxed games and vintage home magazines. (See list at right).
By day, Kathy is a math teacher at St. Ambrose University in Davenport and Dick is a driver for Roadway Express Inc.
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
TOP 10 HOT COLLECTIBLES
The July/August issue of Country Home magazine includes its 14th annual list of hot collectibles. Here’s the top 10.
1. Hens on nests. These are colorful, painted pottery hens that topped many tables in 19th-century England. You can use them on tables, too.
2. Signature quilts. Made as gifts for newlyweds, the quilts had the names of their makers embroidered on them. They can be hung on walls or draped over sofas. Squares can be made into pillows or framed.
3. Boxed games. Old board and boxed games are popular for their colorful, graphic appeal.
4. Bakelite kitchen utensils. A hard plastic developed in 1907, Bakelite appeared on the handles of flatware and kitchen utensils in the late 1920s, bringing color and personality into the kitchen.
5. Brass candlesticks.
6. Political buttons. The first buttons were made for the 1896 presidential race between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. You can’t collect them all, so focus on a particular campaign, state, candidate or party.
7. Vintage home magazines. The colorfully illustrated magazines can be framed and used throughout the house.
8. Sewing notions. This category includes buttons, beads and trim. “Notions can add a big dose of personality to your clothes and home,” Country Home says. “Add buttons to a blouse or a vintage trim to store-bought pillows.”
9. Antique footstools. “Placed next to a chair, a stool is the perfect place to set a book or your drink,” Country Home says. “They’re also great for adding height to other decorative pieces.
10. Copper jewelry. These embellishments debuted in the 1930s and had their heyday in the 1950s. Wear the jewelry or use bangles as napkin rings.
Potters won restoration award
Dick and Kathy Potter won an award in May from the Moline Preservation Society for exterior restoration work on their home.
The aluminum siding was torn off during an “unveiling” in 2001, then wood trim that had been removed for the siding was rebuilt and Dick personally scraped all the old paint.
Next came new paint in a five-color scheme — three shades of green, brick and cream — the replacement of 37 aluminum-frame windows with wood frames, a new roof, and the removal of concrete steps and their replacement with wood.
But all that work really wasn’t half of what they did.
When the Potters bought their house in 1995, it needed extensive interior work before they could even get to the outside.
“That wasn’t the original plan,” Kathy explains. The couple was getting married and looking for a house with five bedrooms for their new, blended family.
“We didn’t want one that needed this much work, but there weren’t a lot of options,” she says. “If you had a year to look, maybe, but my house had already sold, and we wanted to stay in Moline.”
Plus, the house had a beautiful open staircase and a fireplace with a tile surround and mantel with beveled mirror, two features that really appealed to Kathy.
With the purchase began about six years of interior work, including the roof, foundations, and plumbing and electrical.
The ‘unfitted’ kitchen
The Potters’ kitchen is a showplace of vintage everything, from metal cookie cutters and crocheted potholders to a functioning Roper stove and a free-standing enamel sink.
As such, it’s an example of an “unfitted” kitchen. This is a design trend that is actually a throwback to the way kitchens used to be, according to the Web site www.kitchenbathideas.com.
An unfitted kitchen does not use built-ins; there are no walls of cabinets or vast expanses of countertops. Instead, individual pieces of furniture that do not match are used for each workspace, and there are pot racks and wall racks for storage, adding an eclectic, homey feel.
The Potters built the kitchen themselves, with the help of a subcontractor, as part of the total rehab of their home. The only original pieces are the fir floor and some bead board wainscot.
Among the collectibles are metal flour sifters, graniteware, cookbooks, cookie cutters and cake covers. Kathy has collected so many of the latter that now she limits herself only to triple-deckers.
One triple-decker retains the original paper label on top that begins with the words “A housewife’s dream” and goes on to explain how the single carrier could house casseroles, cakes and pies. It was made by the J.L. Clark Co. of Rockford, Ill.
And as for counter space, Kathy says she has plenty. “The Hoosier cabinet pulls out, there is a smaller table between the sink and the stove, and I have a big harvest table.”
Bridge tablecloths >>>
Linens are among Kathy Potter’s favorite collectibles, none more so than the bridge tablecloth.
These are embroidered tablecloths made to fit over square, folding card tables. The tablecloths have elastic or cloth ties at each corner so they can be anchored to the table and not slip.
The embroidery speaks to a different time. “Women had time to make things and do things and not feel like they had to be part of the rat race,” Kathy says. “They made things for friends, they entertained and it was important to have something nice.
“In the ‘50s, the women were home, they had friends over, they played bridge and, you know, it wasn’t all that bad.”
Now that she has amassed more than 160 bridge tablecloths from within a 200-mile radius, Kathy has purchased other bridge accoutrements, including glass candy dishes, coasters and scorebooks with tiny pencils attached by string.
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