Birch + Bird Vintage Home Interiors

We don’t know about you but we’re always looking for clever ways to store and organize all the “stuff” in our home.  Storage that is accessible, useful and above all else, aesthetically pleasing.  Lately, it has been on trend to see vintage finds in design.  So, it couldn’t be any cleverer to use vintage items as solutions for your storage and organizational issues.  And let’s be honest, we all have them.  Don’t we?

Lately, a favourite storage solution of ours is the classic vintage crate.  On wheels, wall-mounted and all stacked up, these crates love to be put to work.  And they often have amazing labels or branding too.

credits: Design*Sponge, poetic home, SpiderWomanKnits, baileys 

Not just meant for travelling, vintage suitcases come in all shapes and sizes, not to mention colour.  They are easy to stack or tuck under a piece of furniture for added visual interest.  What a great way to hide away toys, magazines, blankets, important papers…the list goes on.

credits:  creative mama, bethquinndesigns, hgtv

Our hearts might skip a beat if we ever came across an old library card catalogue that happened to be in our budget.  Just think of all the storage opportunity!  But for now, we’ll stick with the smaller and more manageable file drawers, boxes and towers.  For kitchen storage, herbs and spices, electronic gadgets, cd/dvds, art and craft supplies.  Everything in it’s place.

credits:  Elizabeth Demos, apartment therapy, young house love

What are your clever storage solutions?

On Saturday, we finally crossed the border and enjoyed a full day of garage sale-ing, thrifting, estate sales and more. We’ve literally been planning a trip like this for months and are so glad it finally happened. The pouring rain of the week was washed away by sunshine and wind…the perfect combination to help us shop ’til we dropped! Our plan was to hit as many garage sales as we could in the morning, then browse the Goodwill, ReStore and other thrift stores, ending up at Target and….the icing on the cake….Anthropologie! The only thing we’ll change on our next American adventure is, instead of one day, we’ll make it three!

Here’s a little taste of our Saturday…

Our first stop was an estate sale that worth the hunt (we made 4 stops until we finally found a gas station map of Whatcom County!) and we can’t wait to take photos of our finds for the shop later this week! We found some more garage sales and a museum tag sale before having a divine lunch of beer and pizza at the Chuckanut Brewery in Bellingham, WA. The historical homes and neighborhoods completely charmed us and after lunch we walked until our feet begged us to stop!

Two of our favourite shops were on West Holly Street…a fabulous vintage store called Penny Lane (sadly, no website, and it was too busy inside for us to talk to the owner and ask to take pictures) and Digs, mostly designer goods with a smattering of vintage upstairs…amazing!

And, while we were wandering, the most unbelievable 3 large metal signs caught our eye…leaning up against an abandoned recycling dumpster! They were begging us to adopt them and made us happy every time we opened the trunk…FREE!!! They have been proudly perched on display in each of our homes!

After some more thrift shops, we added onto our journey and made the extra hour and a half trek to the only Anthropologie store remotely near to us in Bellevue, WA…let’s just say it’s a good thing (for our wallets, anyway!) that there’s not one closer! Then a Target run, a 10pm dinner and we finally crossed the border just after midnight!

Here are just a few lovelies from Anthropologie that caught our eye…

Antropology Love by birchandbird featuring anthropologie tops

To get inspired creatively and take the plunge into blogging, we enrolled in the Blogging it Your Way e-Course, hosted the lovely Holly of decor8 and Leslie of A Creative Mint. We have learned so much much and can’t wait to apply it to our own blog! This is an inspiration board that Holly encouraged us to put together. It is a collection of vintage and new items that describe the overall “feel” we want our blog to have.

This is the last week of our course and we feel so honoured to be amidst such a pool of creativity! It’s given us the inspiration and confidence boost that we needed to take this next step not only for our shop but as a creative outlet and escape from our everyday lives.

Thank you to Holly and Leslie for so generously sharing their knowledge, creativity and life lessons!

Drumroll Please!

It’s a momentous day for us here at Birch and Bird! We’ve had “starting a blog” on our to-do list for far too long…today’s the day we finally check it off our list! We thought the best way to start, would be to give you all a glimpse into a day in our life as moms, entrepreneurs and junk hunters extraordinaire! This past Thursday, we packed up four of our combined five children and headed to one of our favorite junk meccas just outside of town. The weather forecast…rain…and more rain…of course!
Now, keep in mind, herding young children into barns packed full of breakable and potentially dangerous “treasures” isn’t for the faint of heart! But, to prepare you for your adventures, we’ve compiled a couple of lists below to help you plan a fun day for all…happy hunting!

5 Tips to Keep Kids Happy While in a Barn FULL of Goods:

• Plan Ahead - Before arriving, make sure all are fed and pottied, set the rules and announce the plan of events, including the reward incentive at the end (for good behavior, of course!)
• Pack Smart - Bring snacks, drinks, extra change of clothes, hand sanitizer (a MUST!), and a sense of humor! Always bring cash, camera, tape measure and more hand sanitizer.
• Partner Up - It’s much easier to browse when you can tag team between browsing and mom responsibilities
• Watch the Clock - Keep an eye on snack times for all and potty breaks for 2 year olds, don’t forget to pick your 7 year old up from school and be prepared to give up  when everyone’s just had enough!
• Reward - If you’d like to attempt this again, make a memorable happy ending with an ice cream treat for everyone!

5 Tips for Good Bargains at Barn Sales

• Start a pile - Finish shopping before asking the value of your finds.  Buy in bulk.  The more the better.
• Guesstimate – Know how many items you have and come up with a price per item that you’d be comfortable with.  Start low but know your maximum price.
• Approach the owner - Ask how much they would like for all of the goods.  Be friendly and light. A sweet child standing quietly or crying loudly may help seal your deal.
• Bargain - Be confident. You have this all worked out in your head already so you should be able to have a good back and forth.  Always pay in cash.
• Go! – Drive away quickly before they change their mind.

Why do we buy what we buy?

We often hear from friends and family that they just don’t know where to start in a thrift shop or barn sale situation.  It seems so overwhelming to some people.  Or it’s just not their “thing”.   We look at it in an entirely different way. The more junk the better.  Searching for goods for our shop is akin to treasure hunting and there’s definitely thrill in the chase! There may be a many reasons why we first pick up an item but first and foremost is that we like it and could see it in one of our own homes. Then, the sensible side takes over…. Will other people love it as much as we do? How much will it cost to ship?  Has it been a hit in our shop in the past?  Have we done our research… are we buying into the forecasted trends? Do we still love it after all those thoughts flash before our eyes? If the answer is no, we don’t love it, we don’t buy it.  While it’s hit or miss what we find on any given day, we certainly know what we love when we see it and can fill a box/cart/basket in record time…treasure hunting is the best part of our job, hands down!

As you can see, our favorite junk barn is a treasure trove and we see something new and exciting every time! This day was a success…the kids had fun, we had more fun and we managed to come away with some new goodies just waiting to be cleaned up and added to our Etsy shop! We did lose track of time, however,  and it took some major hustling to pick up a certain 7 year old from school…phewf!  Here’s a sneak peak at what came home with us this time…