In my last blog post I gave you a roundup of the first of our top home decor and antiques blog posts of 2018. Here’s Part 2 with the remaining five of our favorite 10 posts from last year. It’s been fun to recall some of the things we talked about in 2018. I hope you enjoy seeing the highlights too!
We were thrilled to see a feature about our customer Tamra's home in Columbia Living Magazine. The article mentioned some of the antique furniture Tamra purchased from us and we found out more about Tamra’s house, this beautifully restored Greco-Roman mansion in Newberry, SC.
See the full story and more photos of the inside of the house in the blog post Customer’s Newberry Cam Davis Mansion and Antiques in Magazine.
Perhaps a piece was first crafted as an armoire, nightstand or buffet, but there is no reason that you can’t use it for a very different purpose.This Repurposed Antique Furniture blog post shows how our clients have thought creatively to adapt an antique piece to their needs!
Well, after a few weeks of TLC, he was all healed up.... and he'd also found himself a new home! While we REALLY didn't need another pet, how could we resist? See the full story and more photos, including his first introduction to Minkey the cat, in the blog post Meet Our New Dog, Ernie!
The Greek Key pattern is one of the most elegant designs in home decor and furniture. The classic angular design is very harmonious and it has remained popular for thousands of years.
It works with all styles of interior design schemes too! So in my blog post Greek Key Pattern in Furniture and Decor I tell you a bit about the history of the design and also show lots of ways to incorporate the pattern into your home.
From textiles to tiles, from furniture to light fittings, the Greek Key pattern always looks chic and interesting.
In my blog post Antique French Brittany Buffet with Jadeite Fire King we take a look around Debbie's lovely home in Charleston, SC.
We are looking forward to another year exploring the best in antiques and home decor, and also taking tours of our customers' homes! We hope that you have a wonderful 2019 too!
If you missed Part 1 of our top 10 antiques and home decor blog posts of 2018, you can see the other five at the link.
As we head into the new year, it’s time for our annual round-up of our most popular antiques and home decor blog posts from 2018! Here is the first half of our Top 10 posts of the year…
As part of our series of client spotlights, I wrote in May about this exquisite antique Chinese wedding bed that had been due for demolition before we rescued it! You will also enjoy the unusual story of how it found a new home with our customer in Greenville, SC. It had traveled a long way from its origins in the Zhejiang Province in Eastern China, and it was all thanks to our customer's daughter's craving for Arby's that it landed in Greenville! Read the whole story about the beautiful Late Qing Dynasty bed with its twist of fate in my blog post about the Antique Chinese Wedding Bed.
This year I made a video showing how to fix wood blemishes, watermarks and scratches on antique furniture using furniture crayons. It is an easy process to solve the problem we hear quite often from people who have antique furniture. Perhaps they've accidentally scratched the wood or maybe they've inherited an heirloom that needs some superficial dings tidied up. Along with the video in my How to Fix Scratches on Antique Furniture post I've also given a written summary of the simple process. This was part of our series on antique furniture restoration tips and tricks.
I wrote two blog posts to give you some inspiration about how to work pink into your interior design scheme. The first one was Decorating with Light Pink and I followed up with Decorating with Bright Pink.
This shows lots of ways to bring a blush of pink into your home, from the subtlety of ballet slipper pink to the elegance of rose or a rich jolt of fuchsia.
Renaissance Henry II furniture is always in demand. In fact, this is one of the most popular styles of furniture in our EuroLuxHome.com online store. The noble Henry II style is very classic and beautifully carved, usually in oak or walnut wood. In my blog post What is the Renaissance Henry II Style of Antique Furniture? I tell you all about the history of the style and how to identify it.
I also share some photos of pieces of Henry II style furniture in our customers' homes so you can see for yourself just how handsome it looks! This is part of my series of posts on the history and styles of antique furniture.
The #AntiqueOfTheWeek hashtag is our way of showcasing some pieces that our customers might like to see because they are especially wonderful, unusual and interesting.
Sometimes we highlighted a piece of antique furniture or an antique decorative object because it tied into the season or topical events. For example, we chose this beautiful romantic French antique bed as our Antique of the Week to honor the royal wedding when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle.
We use the hashtag #AntiqueOfTheWeek on our accounts on on Pinterest, Facebook and Google+ so if you aren’t following those accounts already, you can search on that #AntiqueOfTheWeek hashtag.
Happy new year to everyone! If you enjoyed this, see the rest of our picks for the year at this link for the Part 2 of our top 10 decor and antiques blog posts of 2018.
We’ve had a lot of good news this year and shared some great photos of our antique furniture in our customers' homes. Now, as the year turns, it's time to remember our most popular antiques and home decor blog posts from 2017! Here is the first half of our Top 10 posts of the year...
Greg and I were delighted, as we've been running the blog since 2011, talking about the antique furniture we buy in France and other parts of Europe and bring back to the USA. The blog reflects our motto “Fine antiques for regular folks!” and we also talk about general home decor.
In March, we heard that we were again named Best of Houzz Customer Service with our 100% customer satisfaction score, in addition to our Recommended badge given to the top-rated pros on Houzz. Next we celebrated when the new Hobbs Germany collection won an Honorable Mention in the European Product Design Award 2016. We’re thrilled to be U.S. distributors, and you can see the unique wine-inspired collection here.
It was one of our slowest deliveries ever as May lives on the 14th floor and we had to make many trips up and down in the elevator! But what a spectacular view she has from every room in her lovely home, which is filled with European antiques. May purchased this fine antique French Brittany bed from us as well as an antique Brittany buffet which we converted for her to accommodate a TV for viewing in her bedroom. See the full post here for more photos of May's home and the gorgeously carved 1880 antique bed and buffet.
See the full story and more photos in my Woodbridge Table for Knight Kiplinger blog post.
French Country Farmhouse style continues to be popular, and for very good reasons! The comfortable look and timeless charm of the style works in many different types of home and it is a look that is easy to live with. My two posts Farmhouse Style Furniture and Home Decor and French Country Farmhouse Style: Elegant Comfort aim to provide some inspiration! They illustrate the style and explore the key elements to achieve the look in your own home.
Happy new year to everyone! If you enjoyed this, see the rest of our picks for the year at this link for the Part 2 of our top 10 decor and antiques blog posts of 2017.
We were happy to receive their congratulations! We have been running the Letters From EuroLux antiques blog since June 2011, talking about the antique furniture we buy in France and other parts of Europe and bring back to the USA. We also talk about general home decor.
If you are new to our blog, let me give you a little introductory tour.
(Click on any photo to go to the full blog post and more pictures!)
We also talk about our own Vintage Life : The Renovation of our 1920s vintage bungalow. This has been a HUGE job, transforming the house and the garden from top to toe. We've raised the roof, designed our dream vintage kitchen, laid penny tiles in the bathroom, created a cat porch for our fuzzy family and so much more!
To see how our vintage bungalow has evolved from a neglected mess with a wildly overgrown garden, just scroll back through the vintage bungalow renovation posts!
Use the search box (top right) to see if we have already written about a style of antique furniture. And if you have an antique furniture style that you'd like to understand better, tell us in the comments box below!
We hope that you enjoy exploring our blog about antique furniture and home decor!
My clever husband Greg does all the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting on the blog, making sure that the technical stuff works right. And of course, our 8 cats and dogs like to "help" too when I am writing a blog post... 🙂
Thank you again to Feedspot for selecting our Letters From EuroLux antiques blog as one of the Top 30 Antique Blogs on the web. We appreciate it more than you know!
Please tell us in the comments box if there is a topic about antique furniture or home decor that you would like us to cover in future. Or sign up here to receive this blog in your inbox.
In my last blog post I gave you a roundup of six of our favorite home decor and antiques blog posts of 2016. Here’s Part 2 with the remaining six of our top 12 posts from last year. It’s been interesting remembering all the things we talked about in 2016 – we hope you enjoy seeing the highlights too!
The wine-inspired Bordeaux collection from Hobbs Germany features genuine upcycled wine crates from the Bordeaux region of France. The stamps of the wine houses appear on the drawers so these are unique pieces of furniture.
We met the designer, British gentleman David Hobbs, and felt that his high-quality pieces with wooden tops made of European reclaimed oak and Italian granite tops for the kitchen islands were a great fit with our French antiques! See more about Hobbs Germany in our blog post, or browse the full Hobbs Germany collection here.
Check out the client spotlight blog post to see photographs of the interior including our intricately carved antique French Renaissance buffet in the lovely dining room and several of our vintage chandeliers in other spaces.
You can see how it all came together, complete with vintage chandeliers, in my blog post: Vintage Life: My Dream Vintage Kitchen
They showed the Silver Spoon Pendant Chandelier Light Fixture, hand-made by an artisan right here in the United States and crafted with up to 80 vintage silver plate spoons. Some chandeliers also feature teacups or other vintage items. Each piece is custom made to order and each is unique. The upcycled light fixture collection is also very popular with our customers so we had fun showing a round-up of photos of the silver spoon chandeliers in our customers' homes.
Art Deco style was popular in the 1920s and 1930s, reflecting the Jazz Age and a new taste for sleek and streamlined furniture and architecture. Nearly a century on, it's still a popular and influential look today!
Pumpkin was right... however, there is a twist in the tale! Greg and I already had two dogs and six cats so we had our hands full, but Greg’s parents fell in love with Pumpkin and the feeling was mutual. A year after Pumpkin blew in, I updated the news about her and her two new siblings, Corkie and Harper.
From our family -- the humans AND all the fuzzy children -- to you and your family, we hope you enjoy a thriving 2017!
If you missed Part 1 of our top 12 blog posts of 2016, you can see the other six here.
As we step into 2017, it's time to remember our most popular antiques and home decor blog posts from 2016! We've had a lot of good news this year, and we've loved hearing from our customers too. Not only do many customers return to us time and again to buy antique, vintage, and new furniture and home decor accents, but they also send us photographs for our client spotlights so we can see how their purchases look in their home!
We'll start with the first of our favorite 12 antiques and home decor blog posts of 2016.
Bernard lives in Hawaii, so his house happens to enjoy fantastic views too. See more photos and read the whole story here.
The lavishly carved antique bed looks wonderful in Erin's new bedroom, as you can see in the full Antique French Hunting Bed story here.
The resulting Antique Furniture in the Kitchen blog post shows how some of our customers have done just that!
Leather sofas, chairs, stools and benches
We got lots of good feedback on this post!
We also appeared on TWC News when “Around Carolina” filmed in our antiques gallery in Newberry, SC, to highlight us as one of the places to visit in our historic town. My blog post about EuroLux in the News and Newberry Attractions including Newberry Oktoberfest gives links to the video and the articles.
Happy new year to everyone! If you enjoyed this, see the rest of our picks for the year! Here’s the link for the Part 2 final six of our top 12 decor and antiques blog posts of 2016.
On this Leap Day 2016, a glance back over our home decor and antiques blog for February proves that the shortest month still gave us plenty to talk about. Here are our favorite blog posts from fabulous February!
1) Leather chairs and sofas
2) Aubusson hand-crafted throw pillows
3) Console tables in all kinds of designs.
It's interesting to see the items that design-savvy Houzz fans choose. It shows the 'essentials' that people want in their homes. Console tables and leather chairs and sofas are classic pieces that always have a beautiful and useful place in a house, and a hand-made throw pillow is also a wonderful investment.
Soft whites have been chosen by several paint companies as Paint Colors of the Year for 2016 so I took a look at decorating with white to show how to keep white looking elegant and welcoming rather than cold and clinical. I hope you enjoy the tips, including layering whites, exploring textures and contrasting with warm wood.
The final favorite of the month was a travel post. A lot of us can see spring is coming just around the corner, and after this long and cold winter we're ready to dream of trips to new places! This lead to my post about Graceful Getaways in New England.
The three hotels I highlighted have historic stories to tell or they are decorated with antique furniture and art. This is the Mayflower Grace Hotel in Connecticut, featuring antique rugs and antique four-poster beds as well as 18th and 19th century art on the walls. Who'd want to leave their hotel room?
Join me again next month to read about great home decor ideas and info on antique furniture. I’m always happy to hear from you with questions about vintage or antique furniture or lighting, home accents and accessories. Send me an email or comment on this blog or our EuroLux Facebook page.
We jumped into 2016 in a very busy way, unpacking a new container of antique furniture that arrived from France just before Christmas! We were busy on our Letters from EuroLux antiques and home decor blog too, admiring our customer's houses, exploring the new color trends for the year, and cooking up some traditional soups to keep us all warm!
We started January by glancing back at our top 12 antiques and decor blog posts of 2015.
It was hard to choose just a few of our tours of customers’ homes and posts about antiques, home decor and other things that interest us like antiques-inspired travel and elegant entertaining, We hope you like the ones that we thought were the cream of the crop!
We sold two antique tables and some handsome antique French Hunting chairs to the homeowner Stan and we took the time to find out more about the interesting history of the house. We also learned about Pella Historical Village, which (true to its Dutch heritage) is home of the annual Tulip Time tulip festival. Read all about it in the Pella Victorian Villa Client Spotlight.
These exceptional collections include hand-crafted and antique-inspired furniture with the finest veneers, plus spectacular lighting that has been featured in Elle Decor magazine!
I hope 2016 will be a wonderful year for you - keep checking back to read more about traditional decor and fine antiques for regular folks!
Last week I gave you a roundup of six of our most popular home decor and antiques blog posts of 2015. Here’s Part 2 with the remaining six of our (and your) favorite 12 posts from last year. It’s been fun seeing all the things we talked about in 2015 - we hope you enjoy seeing the highlights too. Happy new year!
See the photos of her characterful French kitchen in the story about The Vintage Teacup Chandelier.
Kelley in Houston, TX, was another customer who bought one of the whimsical chandeliers, but as this story shows, she changed out the vintage tea cups for large double espresso coffee cups!
It all looks very impressive -- as well as very cozy -- against the exposed logs in the mountain cabin, as you can see from the photos in the Cottage Style with Antique Furniture post.
But as it's the middle of winter, I'm going to pick out a summery landscaping post: April Showers bring May Flowers to show off just how lovely the garden has grown! Greg and I love puttering in the garden – it's so relaxing to be outside, digging in the dirt. I like to call it yard yoga. We're looking forward to this year's yard yoga and this year's flowers... we hope you have a flourishing 2016 too!
If you missed Part 1 of our top 12 blog posts of 2015, you can see the other six here.
It's that time again! We're reviewing our antiques and home decor blog posts from 2015 and it's very hard to pick just a dozen of the most popular stories of the year.
Before we start, we're grateful for all our good news this year. We received many honors from Houzz.com including a Best of Houzz 2015 award for customer satisfaction and service. Our upcycled vintage spoon chandeliers were featured on a TV show and we expanded and beautified our booth at the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville, NC.
There's more good news too, but let's look at the first six of our favorite 12 antiques and home decor blog posts of 2015. We’ll share the rest in our next post welcoming the new year.
Of the many that stand out from 2015, one is this gorgeous mansion filled with antique furniture chosen by our customer Tamra. In the blog post about the Newberry Mansion you'll see the inside tour with pieces Tamra bought from us including a French Country table, antique Hunting chairs and antique Mechelen buffets.
See for yourself how right she was to wait for the perfect match, and also find out about the carved sheepbone style and why it's named that way!
Since then we also adopted a new little tiger cat, Pumpkin to join our family of (now) 9 cats and dogs. Meet her and read about how Pumpkin arrived during Hurricane Joachim.
As you'll see in the story, mirrored furniture can be subtle, it doesn't have to be a bling-fest. Sophisticated new or antique mirrored furniture not only looks sleek and luxurious, it can also create clever illusions to brighten and expand a room.
Pic: Other Metro Media/Bloggers Go Make Me
I enjoyed putting together this series on how to display a collection. It gave me the chance to explore the very creative ways different people organize and display their ceramics, jewelry, and other collections from vintage model trains to classic cameras.
Later, we also had a chance to show off my mother-in-law Kathy's huge collection of pilgrims and other Thanksgiving-themed objects. You can see Kathy's impressive collection of more than 700 pieces at the link.
I hope these highlights of the year provide you with some inspiration or just a little fun as you browse through.
Happy new year everyone! If you enjoyed this, see the rest of our picks for the year! Here’s the link for the Part 2 final six of our top 12 decor and antiques blog posts of 2015.