Antique shop with me as I try to furnish this empty house!

But here’s the thing, I don’t just want any old furniture. I want pieces that create a home where people feel like they belong, and this house is nowhere near there. 

The furniture that I want has personality, tells a story, and has the French Country / Farmhouse style.

I love cozy, livable, warm homes. That means avoiding throwaway furniture like what you’d find from Ikea and staying away from big box stores. Shopping at these places would just give me the same sofa, dining table, chairs, and rugs as my neighbors.

What I want is to express my family’s personality with the shapes, colors, patterns, fabrics and more.

So come to an antique shop with me to find farmhouse/ French country furniture!

You’ll get to see my while antique shopping experience, including:

• My antique shopping challenges
• Browsing the outdoor antique market
• Shopping the indoor antique market
• Outdoor antique shop finds
• Almost perfect antique shopping finds
• Deciding on what antiques to take home
• Resisting the urge to buy all the things
• Our antique market haul

My antique shopping challenges

We’re going to be renovating this home, but we don’t know the full design yet. However, in the meantime, it needs to be livable as I work on it. 

There’s no place to eat, sit, or sleep, so I have to find a breakfast table, chairs, beds, and night stands before I leave.

Before you antique shop with me, there are a few challenges that I am working with:

• Time crunch (I only have this one day to do it)
• Availability (We don’t know if there’s a store that’ll have everything we’re looking for)
• Measurements (I have to be *sure* that it fits as I’m shopping)

If I don’t find what I’m looking for today, my kids won’t want to come with me to this house again, and it’ll completely ruin this vacation home for us. Sleeping on air mattresses and sitting on the floor gets old fast.

Browsing the outdoor antique market

Before entering this antique shop, we were surprised to find that they had an outdoor shopping area as well!

We stumbled upon a white garden set that I had my eye on. Then we continued on to find even more antiques tucked away in what looked like an open storage pod.

Once we squeezed our way into the pod, we found a few gems hiding in there. We were hoping to find some chairs to take home. There were a couple possible contenders, but none that caught our eyes.

We did, however, find one piece that was definitely coming home with us. Rohan and Bobby Neal fell in love with a lighthouse lamp. “No” was definitely not an option on that one.

Naturally, I was tempted by a couple outdoor seating options and from there we made our way into the shop.

Shopping the indoor antique market

We quickly got distracted by all of the fun options at this antique shop. I was eyeing up a punch bowl, some glasses, a tray, and plates.

After getting over the initial excitement of all of the pretty things, I refocused on the items from my checklist. 

I found a beautiful small dining table option, but it was just a little too wide for the breakfast room.

Because I came equipped with my measurements in mind and a ruler in hand, I found that I had to pass on that one.

My disappointment on that one didn’t last long because I found some beautiful punch bowls to keep my excitement high. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still kicking myself for not picking one up.

I used to think I was crazy for having four in my personal collection, but wanna know a fun fact? Martha Stewart has 75 that she uses during Christmas parties!

There was so much to see inside, I was stunned to see that there were even more items outside. 

Outdoor antique shop finds

We found a few pieces that stood out to us, but we had to test them for practicality. There was one chair that we all liked, but we had to do a sit test for comfort. 

We also found a night stand that looked nice, but it came up a little too short after measuring. The bed that it would go next to is 30 inches off the ground, and it only stood about 18 inches tall.

This night stand was about half of that height, so it was not a good fit. After eliminating that option, we made our way back inside and found some almost perfect antique gems.

Almost perfect antique shopping finds

Admittedly, I did get distracted by some of the beautiful gems at this antique shop. I even convinced myself that a jewelry table was a good idea. But I have to say, it’s always a relief when the price tag reminds me that I don’t need something…

Sometimes when you’re antiquing, the price is right, but the style just isn’t there for you or the person who you are shopping with. 

I tried to get Bobby Neal on board for the antique jewelry table that I found, but he was not amused by the $2,800 price tag. Even Coco was not on my side.

Deciding on what antiques to take home

After walking through the whole antique shop and pinpointing all of the pieces that *I* was drawn to, I took Bobby Neal on a tour of my picks so we could eliminate what we didn’t agree on.

We even spotted a couple pieces that we didn’t see on our first go around, like this beautiful red/peachy colored chair.

I also spotted a child sized wing back chair that I didn’t notice the first time. I got excited with this one because it had the look that I was going for and a good price tag, but it had to pass the sit test before committing. 

That’s where I recruited the help of Dayven. It was a good size, but didn’t pass the comfort test by his standards.

Resisting the urge to buy all the things

Sometimes we can convince ourselves that a piece is a good find because of the price, but that doesn’t always mean it’s a good buy. I had to remind Bobby Neal about this while we were shopping…

Suddenly he wanted to buy everything!

This can happen to people while antiquing. It’s easy to become overstimulated by the unique pieces. You can get into the immediacy mindset that if you don’t buy now, you’ll never find it again.

He calculated a bill that was thousands of dollars, and even started drafting up ideas on how to get big pieces delivered to this California house.

Our antique market haul

I wasn’t able to furnish this house in a day with one antique shopping trip.

BUT it felt so good to find beds that were comfortable to sleep in, nightstands, one chair for the living room, and outdoor patio set that Neal really liked, trash pail, and a lighthouse lamp, and a pitcher.

So… did I find my dream furniture? No, but that’s okay because I enjoy this process. I love the thrill of the hunt and finding special pieces. I’m not the type of person who would buy a house and furnish it all in one weekend. I love the journey, and I hope you do too. 

See you next time!

Amitha 

P.S. You can find all of these early fall decorating items at our retail store, Village Antiques in Houston.

Please stop by and check out our collection of farmhouse-style furniture, French country home decor, antiques, vintage, chalk finish paints, and more!

We are open Tuesday – Saturday from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. 

You can also reach us at (713) 468 – 3931