Antiquing as a Family

I am obsessed with home shopping. I mean not literally houses, well maybe yes that too, but more like home decor, lighting, furniture, plumbing fixture kinda shopping. I could do it all day every day and never tire of it whatsoever. It’s my own personal shot of espresso, minus the espresso. Mark on the other hand usually starts yawning about 2′ inside the door. I haven’t figured out if it’s the smell of these places, or maybe the price tags but it’s like an instant coma. Yet for some reason ever since we purchased “Our Historic Wonderland”, he now mentions going antiquing on the weekends. I honestly thought he was kidding at first. A regular dose of his hilarious sarcasm. However, somehow our little historic gem has ignited a desire for him to do a little family antiquing. I mean, we do live in the absolute mecca of an antiquing city… Monroe, GA.

I’m sure it all has something to do with the fact that we are on the hunt for fixtures rather than furniture. Like wood timbers and solid wood doors. You know, that manly kind of stuff. Well whatever the reason, I have been taking full advantage and we have been out and about almost every Saturday. From the Monroe Cotton Mills to other local antique stores, ~~we are~~ I am on a mission to hit them all! So come alongside as I share our most recent trip and fun purchases for our new home!

I am dying to get my hands on one of these fireplace surrounds pictured below for one of our five fireplaces. They’re so rich with history I feel like they almost tell a story about the homes they were in and the lives that went on around them. That sounded kinda creepy once I wrote it out but they just get me so excited! Dents, peeling paint, rotten wood and all. And the even crazier part of all of this is that the guy who owns the Monroe Cotton Mills (the place in most of these images) is the previous owner of our new home. He did all of the demolition work so I am so intrigued to find out if anything in the Mill was actually from our home! How cool would that be?!?

I wanted one so bad but Mark said we needed to measure our fireplaces first. You know, make sure it would actually work before we purchased it. I was like a kid in a candy store. He’s always good at killing my dreams with all of that “adulty” advice. 😉

These doors make me swoon! Another item that we needed to measure for first for some crazy reason. I loved these so much I would’ve taken them home and made them work. We have one “barn door” opening in our laundry room and I’d LOVE to use something like this for that instead of the typical wood “X” type door. Even the knobs are all kinds of amazing.

Amazing wooden beams huh?!? The kiddo is pretty cute too ;-)…

We did purchase this beam pictured below. I am hoping to make at least one fireplace mantle out of it. I couldn’t resist the color, the imperfections and the fact that they’re really old. Adding some history back into the home is #1 on my wish list for this project.

Totally feeling the Paul Bunyan vibe right here. Now THAT is hot! 😉

I have to admit that I totally stole that line from one of our BHG photographers. When they were shooting our home, they said they loved him in our family shot because he totally had that Paul Bunyan vibe going on. I got a good belly laugh on that one. Love ya babe!

Sometimes when I am working on a project, I go looking for things. And then other times things go looking for me. I totally felt like these wood vent panels were begging me to take them home. I have no clue yet what I’d do with them but I want them. Like really bad.

And then I spied these amazing white vintage-y supports that were totally screaming “Anthropologie kitchen island” to me. So I twisted Mark’s arm and swore I’d use them somewhere. I am hoping to seal them really good to preserve the chipping paint. It’s oh so charming that almost falling apart look!

Our girlies are total troopers on days like this. Addie totally gets into it and creates a use for everything in the store. Winnie on the other hand just loves to climb and jump on things and make me a nervous wreck.

Addie spotted this “kid-size” door and it’s literally the perfect size for the doorway to their hidden loft area. I haven’t shown y’all that quite yet but the girlies are more excited about it than anything else in the home. This tiny, window-less space with slanted ceilings is Christmas morning to them everytime we visit the reno.

And we’re off!

Next we stopped by the other antique store section of the Cotton Mills on a hunt for a clawfoot tub for the master bathroom. I want a vintage one that I can paint the bottom of it a fun color. Mark remembered seeing this one on our last trip there. It was still there but we left undecided because our drain is stubbed center and this one is off-set. I am so symmetrical though I am kinda worried this one would make me crazy. I do love it though!

And finally we popped in and met the sweetest people at this custom barnwood design store. I would like two custom, rustic tables for our home. One long and narrow one in the breakfast nook and one in the dining room. Mark drooled over all of the wood and tools while the girlies annoyed their cat the whole time 😉