Transform your home with secondhand decorations

METRO DETROIT — As people consider revitalizing their homes during the warmer months, there are many different ways to utilize antiques or secondhand furniture and trinkets as decorations for both the outside and inside of residences.

Merlin Bush, representative of the Benjamin Moore Paint Outlets at 1982 Star-Batt Drive in Rochester Hills, noted that his business is much more busy in the spring and summer.

“During the winter, we get a lot of people redoing tables and stuff like that, and painting on the interiors,” Bush said. “And springtime, it’s everything . . . because spring and summer, they can get outside. So, pretty much traffic doubles.”

The Benjamin Moore Paint Outlets sell a wide variety of interior and exterior paints as well as painting tools. Bush has worked with customers who were interested in rehabilitating or transforming antique furniture pieces.

“So, if they want to strip it and restain, we can help them do that. If they want to strip it and prime it and paint it, we can help them do that,” Bush said.

In terms of further utilizing household items and furniture, Jennifer Goldstein is a resident of Troy whose garden and home features many different types of items that have been upcycled or rehabilitated to further express her and her family’s interests through decor. Her garden was featured in the Troy Garden Club’s 2021 Garden Walk.

“So, I love the idea of upcycling, recycling, keep things from the landfill, make them cute, look at them and get ideas for how they could get another life,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein has been interested in upcycling and rehabilitating different items and furniture for her whole life.

“My mom was a gardener and she had a lot of, you know, whimsical touches, and she loved antiques, and we always wanted to find a way to either give things to people that would use them or find a new use for them,” Goldstein said.

Her home utilizes secondhand items or antiques in new ways, like a fireplace mantle with mosaic details from old china pieces, a hummingbird feeder made from a chandelier, a sofa that was reupholstered and bedazzled, linens that were painted with cornstarch to cover windows and cabinet doors, as well as old furniture, clothing and dinner sets that were turned into pots and baskets for plants, among many other diverse items.

“For spring decorating, just adding flowers or plants or things everywhere as long as it’s properly irrigated where it can drain fine and it’s got the light that it needs, you can just really go to town being creative,”  she said.

Goldstein learned many skills for her projects from online sources as well as friends and family, though she’s always had skill with sewing, particularly through high school and college-level classes.

“I have had some amazing people in my past,” Goldstein said. “I mean, my mom and dad . . . they tore down a barn and a chicken coop to build the back of their house when I was in high school, and I didn’t really help them or learn from them then, but I watched them be able to do everything. So, I just always assumed I would grow up and know how to do everything, and it wasn’t, like, genetic; it wasn’t automatic.

“But I’ll tell you, we are living in the day of YouTube videos. You can learn anything because everyone has posted how they’ve done it.”

Many of her items came from curbside finds, “buy nothing” Facebook groups, church and garden club “freecycle” events, charity shops, garage and estate sales, as well as shopping her own closet (to revitalize older clothing). She recommends looking into these different avenues for anyone interested in doing this type of decorating.

“So, that’s really where I go to get my stuff, but I am the oldest granddaughter, and so I feel like I am the keeper of the treasures,” Goldstein said. “You know, it’s my generation. I have to hand the baton to the next.”