Days 18-21: Vintage Furniture Shopping for Phase 2 of Home Improvement

I love vintage furniture. I spent a good portion of Week 3 rooting around vintage and vintage-industrial furniture stores in Chicago. Number one on my list was Urban Remains. When you compare the inventory of the big industrial salvage stores in Chicago -- Urban Remains, Salvage One, Architectural Artifacts -- Urban Remains has the most pieces that appeal to me. I think they do a great job of finding interesting industrial pieces that are practical for modern homes. Unfortunately, they're also very expensive.

Urban Remains

Urban Remains used to have a warehouse and a separate showroom but recently moved to a new location where they consolidated the contents of their previous two locations. It's definitely filled to the brim. Walking around this store by myself, undisturbed, for nearly an hour was probably one of the happiest moments of my sabbatical. Stores like this one are usually full of annoying customers and snooty salespeople on the weekends so looking around during the week is a real luxury.
The two main objectives of Phase 2 for my home improvement were to make my living room more homey and add a seating area to my kitchen. The plan for creating a homier living room was adding rugs, better lighting, acquiring an end table, and creating more seating points around the coffee table. My solution for seating in the kitchen was to acquire a small table and two stools.

While I could easily find cheap furniture that fits these spaces from Craigslist or Ikea, I wanted to focus on making a my home a place where I want to spend time. Filling it with furniture I don't love didn't seem like a good strategy, so I wanted to find interesting pieces that make me happy while still staying on a reasonable budget.

Stools at Urban Remains

I thought I'd start with the stools. As you can see, Urban Remains has a plethora of stools but even the tiniest ones will set you back at least $300. Too rich for my blood. I ended up purchasing stools at Design Within Reach during their a sale on select colors of the Tolex Marais seating line. I snagged two stools in mint for $108 each, discounted from $180 each. I believe plum, mint and white will be on sale through the end of this month. I know spending $100 on a stool may seem insane, but for such a well-designed and well-constructed item, I thought it was a good deal. That, and it's still $200 cheaper than one of these vintage stools. Hiyo!

I also purchased two sets of cushions from Design Within Reach that I could put on the floor of my living room as the additional seating points around the coffee table. Apartment Therapy suggests that you have at least three seating points around your coffee table in the living room because it stimulates conversation and gets rid of the "movie theatre syndrome" most living rooms have. The cushions were floor models and are meant to be used outdoors. That means you can spill all the red wine you want on them and all I have to do is rinse the covers. Originally priced at $265 a pair, I got both sets for $53 a pair since they were itching to move them out of the store.

Coming back to my Urban Remains visit, I saw a small table on casters that I thought could make a good end table, but when they brought it down from the shelf to the floor, I found a huge stain on it.

See the stain?

This is an old typewriter desk that is missing a drawer in the center of the table. It was priced at $225 and the lowest offer they were willing to give me was $200. I came pretty close to buying it since it was a tense and awkward moment, but I'm so glad I didn't. After looking at typewriter desks online and at other stores, my newly, slightly seasoned eye would pay no more than $80 for this table.

I love their stuff, but I think their prices can be outrageous. I bought my desk from Urban Remains a little over one year ago and had a different haggling experience. The desk is a slate-topped table with mint green legs salvaged from an old Cook county hospital. It was originally priced at $765 but I saw a similar, larger table in their showroom priced at $350 and when I asked about the disparate prices, stating that I wanted the smaller one, he just matched the price on the larger one and I got a way better deal on it ... well, a deal if you considered the original price point to be fair.

My experience at Urban Remains was the only one where I got close to buying something and then didn't end up going through with it. It doesn't help that they only give store credit for pieces that don't work out rather than letting you return the damn things. I made my purchases for Phase 2 at Design Within Reach, Vintage Pine, Ikea, and Etsy (I know!).

Second floor of Vintage Pine

I've always harbored a healthy curiosity for what's inside Vintage Pine since I've seen its exterior so many times when exiting Whole Foods. They have a cool mix of European style vintage furniture. I found the small table I wanted for my kitchen there.

That's right, it's the smallest drafting table you've ever seen!

I love everyone who works at Vintage Pine. They're very nice, knowledgeable and are willing to talk about price without getting weird about it. This table was priced at $325 but they came down to $275. I also found an old France tourism poster, the same one that was in the room where I learned French growing up, so I had to get that as well -- you'll see the two pieces together in my next post when I show you the before/after pictures from Phase 2. Vintage Pine is holding an open house the weekend of September 23-25. I definitely plan to attend and so should you!

As for the end table, I looked all over for a cheaper version of the one pictured below that I spotted at Room Service in Andersonville on Day 1 of my sabbatical. The shop owner actually misspoke when he told me that this table was made by someone in Milwaukee who operated under the name of "Urban Remains" -- it's actually "Industrial Remains." The man is Chase Kelm and he has a store on Etsy.

An end table I found in Andersonville during Week 1.

Compared to the $495 in-store price tag (which would have ended up being closer to $550 with Chicago tax), the direct-from-the-maker price was much cheaper at $230 including shipping. Seeing as I had the image of this table stuck in my head since day 1, I bit the bullet and bought it online. This is probably my greatest furniture triumph since it involved a bit of sleuthing on my end. It was worth it.

During my trip to Ikea the prior week, I noticed they had a more than decent lighting selection so I decided to go back and address my lighting needs. Lighting can be a very expensive part of your home and I was fine with cutting corners in this area if it meant I could have more cash for furniture. I decided on the nickel-plated format lamp($40) and the fado lamp($20) for my living room.

Other furniture stores in which I looked around but didn't buy anything:

• Jayson Home and Garden -- $$$. I only found out they had free parking after I'd paid to park on the street. Nice pieces, high prices.
• BoConcept -- I only spent 10 minutes in here. This really solidified my opinion that most mass-produced, modern furniture lacks character.
• Crate and Barrel -- $$. Their offering is pretty decent and but not for smaller spaces. It seems like most of the furniture here is made for people who live in gigantic homes in the suburbs.
• Crate and Barrel Outlet -- $. Crap. Utter crap.
• The Find -- $$$. This place is located where the Urban Remains showrooms used to be on Grand Ave. It sells a poorly edited mix of items and styles. Hardly any of it appealed to me. I spent about 5 minutes inside and left. Exorbitantly priced.
• European Furniture Warehouse -- $$. Huge but not great. The space is cooler than the items for sale.
• Post27 -- $$. They have some salvaged pieces but mostly mid-century modern vintage furniture. I spotted an end table I liked but it was way too expensive at $385.
• I tried going to Salvage One but they're only open on the weekends. Their stuff is okay but I think they're more focused on providing event space than selling vintage furniture.
• World Market -- $$. I was strangely hopeful for World Market since I'd read that you can often find cheaper versions of designed objects here. That's not exactly the case. I visited after I shopped at Design Within Reach for Tolex seating. World Market has very bad knockoffs of the Tolex Marais A56 Armchairs and they're only about $65 cheaper than the real thing in plum, white or mint. However, if you do want the classic gunmetal, World Market will save you about $175. Still, you can easily tell that the construction is way cheaper and the lines aren't as clean as the real thing. If my trip to World Market taught me anything, it's to start at the top and see if you can get a deal rather than try and find cheap knock-offs.

All in all, a kind of exhausting few days. I definitely experienced decision-fatigue at some points. I had to take a break after hitting Vintage Pine so I made myself a little snack at Whole Foods.

Chickpea salad, tabbouleh, three chicken wings and a beer.

I was sitting next to these kids watching a baseball game and it was actually pretty hilarious. They were about 10 but sounded like legit sports commentators.

Although I spent way more money than originally planned during Week 3, I did experience some moments of pure joy. I love the city and all it has to offer but when you're on a 9-5 work schedule, you have to compete with everyone else for space to look around and peruse. Crowds and traffic make tasks like antiquing or going grocery shopping stressful when they are actually enjoyable experiences during off-peak hours of the day. Lack of competition is by far my favorite part of my sabbatical so far.