Sustainability = Vintage and Antique Furnishings at Extending Grace
According to the EPA, 12.1 million TONS of furniture were discarded; of that 12.1 million tons, 80% went to landfills.
Let’s stop and re-read that. Those are crazy figures.
So why is there so much furniture in our landfills?
Data points to what industry experts refer to as “fast furniture”. You know the kind; furniture that’s been recently mass produced in the last few decades sold in big box stores. It’s typically made with particle board, plastic, and who knows what else – except durable hardwoods. It’s cheap, hard to repair, prone to breakage and folks just pitch it in lieu of fixing it or updating it.
How do we stop the crazy and make a difference?
We feel so strongly about vintage and antique furnishings, we opened Extending Grace 6 years ago. Not all antique and vintage furniture are treasures, but many of them are. We find pieces that people have stopped loving and bring them into the shop to update them or make them available for you to update.
Often a piece requires repair. It takes a bit of effort to clean, sand and update, but the results are so worth it! Look at some of our favorite before and after pics. We think you’ll agree.
Do you have to paint furniture to restore it?
Furniture does not have to be painted to update it, but it is an affordable option to think about when you’re redecorating your space. Let’s face it, not every piece of vintage furniture is a masterpiece. There are a number of pieces that have elaborate wood grains and we’d never paint those. But there are also drab shades of brown that are just sitting in your basement because you can’t bear to throw them out, but you’re unwilling to put them in the family room looking the way they do.
We’d love to help!
We are proud stockists of Fusion Mineral Paint and Milk Paint products (paint has no VOCs). We also carry Iron Orchid Design, A Maker’s Studio and Decoupage Queen products to help embellish your furniture and accessories. We’ve got loads of workshops and you can check out tutorials for each of these brands right here on the website.
Start a new trend.
We all love a trend, but the trend of buying cheap disposable furniture has to stop.
Start re-imagining the pieces you have sitting in the basement. Paint a vintage piece of wood furniture for your daughter’s apartment instead of buying disposable furniture from a big box store.
Check out the inventory at Extending Grace, we always have great inventory (ask us about the basement…) and we’re always willing to help you come up with ideas.
Furniture Waste/ The Forgotten Waste Stream :RTS Blog
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/sustainability-fast-furniture The Fast Furniture Problem
