Have you ever looked around your home and felt like something is missing? You can't quite put your finger on it, but you know that you need to change things. You purge and you check the trends and you scour the big box stores to find interesting decor pieces and still, it doesn't feel right. That vintage reproduction vase you picked up at Target with the faux patina looked pretty on the shelf along with the dozen others, but when you got it home you realized that it doesn't bring you joy when you look at it. You stop by your neighbor's house to return misdelivered mail and you see some of the same decor items in their house as you have in yours. You walk home wondering if your home tells your story or if it’s just a rubber stamp of whatever is trending. Something needs to change.

The Emotional Power of Vintage Decor

Decorating your home is more than just filling it with well-appointed items that go together. Your home should tell your story and each one of us has a unique one to tell. When you look around your home, you want to have items that stir up emotions in you and compel visitors to ask you about how you came to be the owner of that piece.

Some items stir up funny memories. You stroll past a vintage shop and your eye falls on a painting in the window. You smile and the memories come flooding back to the time mom came home from her weekly shopping trip after taking a detour to the local hotel where starving artists were selling their paintings dirt cheap. It was dad's birthday and she had the idea that what he needed was something nice to hang on the wall of the pink tiled bathroom in his home office. She proudly unwrapped a gaudy pink oil painting of roses and presented it to dad. He tried to sound excited about it, but his face said it all. Your older sister wanted to hide it in the closet, but you secretly loved it and admired your mother for her good taste in art. It birthed a running joke that if you wondered what to buy someone for a gift you could always give them pink roses. The painting disappeared somewhere along the years, but as you stare at the one in the shop window you know at that moment that you will be bringing home an oil painting of roses to hang in your bathroom.

Some pieces bring a tinge of sadness, yet at the same time comforting. Throughout your childhood you remember the old ironstone pitcher that sat on the pine dry sink in your grandma’s front hall and how it was always filled with a bouquet of flowers that grandpa would bring to her every week. If she had a fresh bouquet she would show you how to trim the stems and add some pennies to the water “to keep them fresh longer” and then let you arrange them in the gleaming white pitcher. The time came when grandpa passed away and the pitcher sat empty on the pine stand. It made you sad every time you visited her in those final years and you always regretted not claiming the pitcher for yourself after grandma’s passing. Now you find yourself looking at an identical one in a small antique shop. It’s empty and you have a very strong urge to fill it with flowers. You pick it up and find yourself almost running to the front to purchase it before someone else does.

And then there are those pieces of decor that offer us redemption from past sins. You are browsing in one of your favorite vintage shops when your eye falls on a beautiful deep tangerine-colored glass candy dish and you are ten-years-old again, lying on the carpet in the living room watching cartoons. As you watch, you absent mindedly rub your foot along the edge of the coffee table unaware that with every pass, you nudge your mother’s prized candy dish closer to the edge. This dish was given to your mother by her favorite Aunt Charlotte as a wedding gift and it has always been displayed quite proudly on the coffee table. She kept peppermints in it and you were never allowed to have more than one and only if you asked and only if you had eaten your dinner. At this moment you continue your absorption in the program and with one last swipe of your foot the dish flies off the table and crashes to the floor. It is broken beyond repair and you burst into tears waiting for the reprimand to come. Mother rushes in and checks to see that you are not crying from a cut on the broken glass and tells you to be more careful in the future. She doesn’t get angry, but you know that she is deeply disappointed and it is something you couldn’t replace. As the years went by, mother would mention the dish in a wistful way, but never bringing up the fact that you were the one who broke it. Now, you reach out and flip the tag that reads ‘vintage Marguerite glass pedestal compote dish’ and you know that it will soon be yours. 

Create a Home That Tells Your Story

Decorating your home isn’t just about matching colors and getting new things to change it up. It’s about finding pieces that have the power to speak to your soul. Decorating is about creating a home that tells your story unlike any other. Check out my shop to find vintage decor that will help you tell your story at