To buy, or not to buy.

Today I read an interesting article on Apartment Therapy called, The Ethics of Shopping Cheap. Just last weekend, we purchased furniture for our addition, all of which came from either Ikea, Pottery Barn or Pier One, so the article got me thinking about the overall contents of our home. In fact, Mark was just lamenting that too much of our furniture has come from Ikea, but looking around, I think it's more 50% store bought to 50% second hand, the vast majority of which is antique or at lease vintage, depending upon how loosely you use the word "antique."

We started purchasing second hand furniture sometime around the year 2000. One of our earliest purchases was a four post bed, found at an antique fair for $50. Lauren sleeps in that bed today. In fact, all of the beds in our home are second hand. The bed in our spare room pictured above was found in an antique store, while the nightstand next to it was from in my nursery when I was a baby.



The desk in this photo is also in our spare bedroom. Believe it or not, one evening before trash pickup day in our old neighborhood, we passed by it sitting on someone's curb. I begged Mark to go back for it, because it was the kind of desk I always dreamed of having when I was a little girl. So yes, it was free. Right now, it's serving as my sewing desk (although it doesn't see a lot of action).

One point that is made over and over again in the comments to the article is how difficult it can be to find quality second hand items, so difficult that we're often forced to buy brand new at the big box stores or else go furnitureless. This is very true. If given a choice, Mark and I would have nothing but second hand stuff, but it can take sometimes years to find what you want. Much of it depends on the region where you live, and in our opinion, our area of Western Pennsylvania just isn't that great for antiques. Because of that, many of the items that we have were purchased outside the area. For as long as I can remember, Mark has been searching for a desk of his own. Over the years, he has seen many on eBay that he liked, but they were all located hundreds of miles away. Rather than settle, he goes desk-less in hopes that he'll eventually find one within a reasonable distance from our house.

Still, Ikea isn't so bad. We still have a pair of dining chairs that we bought in 1997 when we moved into our first apartment. So who knows - maybe they will be the desirable antiques of tomorrow.