By Brooke Giannetti

As we collectively ring in a new year, it’s a great time to look ahead to what 2023 might bring into your personal and professional lives – all while trying to reinvigorate the spaces around you. Steve and I love to spruce up our home each year as we take down Christmas decorations and see somewhat of a blank canvas before us that is open to new inspiration.

 

We like to use this opportunity to re-imagine certain spaces, breathe new life into others and help our surroundings feel as new as the coming year. If you’ve lived in your home for a while, I highly recommend rethinking how you live in your home. Could a few simple moves bring more ease to your everyday life? We think so!

 

While it’s always fun to add a special new find to the mix here and there, we love to create newness with things that are old. So instead of a store-bought piece of furniture with minimal character and certainly no storied past, we opt to find beautiful antiques to add to our home. 

Renewing yourself for 2023 can be done in a variety of ways. Yes, diet, exercise and self-reflection are popular this time of year, but there is something to be said about re-imagining your living spaces. We are so inspired by our surroundings that invigorating spaces in our home can actually help us renew ourselves.

 

Steve and I love antiques because they can transcend design styles and are almost always conversation pieces. The same antique can work in a beach house, or a log cabin, and they still look great. 

 

Why is that? Well, the color palette, the detailing and the history of most antiques contribute to a space without competing with it. Using antiques throughout our homes and the homes we design is our way of recycling. Antiques enable us to change spaces as our life changes. Even with our cross country move, we have many antiques that have worked well in completely different spaces. 

 

Antiques can be as functional as they are beautiful. We love to find pieces that can double as storage spaces. Rather than buying storage at Ikea, find a chest or bench that will be a beautiful accent piece that hides everything from extra bedding to sweaters. 

The beauty of antiques is that they become part of your story. We have several antique pieces that have moved with us across the country, have lived through our children being little and now show how well furniture was made long ago because they still look as beautiful, if not more so, with a little bit of weathering. 

 

Maybe this New Year, 2023, is a time for you to begin to incorporate some antique pieces into your home or if you are not new to antiques, think of a new way to incorporate them into your space. It does not have to be a massive piece of furniture, but like our folding screen, it can be just a touch of personality added to one room in your home, from which additional décor can take design inspiration. 

 

For example, take this Gustavian Buffet from the 19th century available in our online shop. It is the perfect way to add extra storage & beauty to any room in your home. As I said, I am currently residing in an 1850s log house, and while I love the smaller scale of the space, it meant that I had to get creative with storage. Adding this piece to our bedroom was the perfect solution to our small closet problem! 

A great example of this and a favorite among our antiques is a small, flea market find Steve and I bought years ago. It is a simple folding screen, yet we have found so many great places for it to live here in Tennessee and California. We love this piece so much that it even ended up on the cover of our book, Patina Style.

 

We have used the piece in our entryway, dining room and above our fireplace mantel. It just continues to find new life while preserving so many family memories it carries with it. We love how it functions almost as an art piece that we pull colors from and let it be the inspiration for other décor. 

 

It is interesting to see how effortlessly our cherished objects from our Santa Monica shingle beach house and our European-inspired Ojai farmhouse find their perfect place in an 1850s Tennessee log house. There are common threads they all share. A rustic beauty, hints of a craftsman’s touch, natural materials aging gracefully over time – patina. All those characteristics are timeless.