Olde Good Things

Many of you may already know that we have been looking to expand in New York City. We have recently opened our second Manhattan location in the Union Square area – on 16th Street between Union Square West and Fifth Avenue. We are filling it, as we write this, with an eclectic array of altered antiques – our unique line of salvaged materials transformed into useful and interesting furnishings for the home, office or commercial space. Plus we have many other antique and modern furnishings. We are open for business at this location and are currently having our pre-grand opening! Come one come all! Take a look – our inventory is constantly changing and we keep adding more and more neat stuff. Our hours of operation are 11 am to 8 pm 7 days a week.

That’s right, we went the way of social networking. So find us on Facebook and become a fan and let the world know you like architectural salvage! Come see Olde Good Things on Facebook.

While many of you know of our beautiful stained glass collection, you may not know that we have a huge selection of trim, woodwork, crown moulding, paneling, and mantels. Well we do. In fact we have some sets of entire rooms that are collected from some prestigious homes across the U.S.

These pictures you are seeing are of a new home built a few years ago. The builders bought an entire room from the Constable Estate in New York, better known as the West Chester Day School. Each room in the estate was designed and decorated in a different style.

The style of this house is a Tudor so the couple building it chose the Tudor room and bought everything from that room. Along with some stained glass windows and some chandeliers, they are able to decorate the entire house to match the architecture.

There are a couple of extravagant wood mantels, door trim, railing, rafters, and even some windows from the original mansion. This is a perfect example of how you can take a new home and make it feel like it was built in the 1800s. Even their furniture matches the style and nostalgia of the rest of the house.

If you live in New York City, or if you’re just a health food fanatic, then you may have heard of The Pump Energy Foods. With several locations across the city, they are growing and recently opened a store at the corner of Pine & Pearl.

The Pump Energy Foods

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The before image

Five years ago there was a set of doors that was removed from a structure in a South American city. The doors were placed in a cargo container and transported over sea and rail for several weeks until they finally arrived at our warehouse in Scranton. Here they were removed from the container, dusted off, and photographed before being slid between other doors of similar size and stature, and left in storage for the time. The photographs were posted on our web store.

There these doors stood, over crowded and unappreciated, for many months. The shadows of passing customers would cast onto the frame, light would bounce from admiring faces that would only walk on to leave the magnificent portal untouched. Until finally, near the eve of Christmas, 2006, a returning customer was browsing our web store and caught a glimpse of a thumbnail, and decided to purchase the entryway.

Front door installed

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Interior view of house using salvaged materials

Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood in Northeastern Pennsylvania are several perfect examples of salvaged materials being given new life. The owners of this house frequented our warehouse finding multiple items to revive, giving ultimate character to their home. This shows that reclaimed architecture can be very beautiful as well as rewarding when used in the proper setting.

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Here’s the first installment of what we hope to be a continuing series, Olde Good Things in the movies. The set above is from the 2004 movie The Forgotten (with Julianne Moore). The clock face is originally from the Shamokin (Pa.) clock tower (which had a unique history of its own, see also here, here and here).

The glass panels are actually corrugated with embedded chicken wire, reclaimed from industrial buildings and manufacturing plants. No longer manufactured, we’re the only remaining source of this glass, as far as we know. It’s also been used successfully in canopies as well as vertical walls and room dividers.

Also olde good things are the wooden table with industrial base (one of our specialties) and the wooden shelves in the background.

If you’ve ever been to a flea market in the Northern Virginia or Washington, DC, area, you’ve probably seen this man, selling his oil paintings on canvas.

Mladen ‘Gino’ Novak was born in 1948 in Zagreb, Croatia. He was schooled at the Maksimir Artist School in Zagreb. ‘Gliha’ was his teacher and mentor who has works hanging in the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Leaving Croatia in 1966, he studied technique in Islip, New York, for two years, then attended college in Ethiopia to continue his studies.

He eventually came to America in September 1988 to escape from Communism.

Novak is well known known in Europe for his watercolors. He has an excellent use of strong, bold colors with an emphasis on perspectives. His style is impressionist.

Presently he works on commissioned pieces.

Here’s some impressive credentials:

• Has works hanging in Galley 11 in Zagreb, Croatia, alongside Picasso and other famous painters.

• Presently has an exhibition in Fuchs Gallery in Valbonne, France.

• Has work hanging in the Cochrane Museum in Washington, DC, affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.

• Is in a “Who’s Who” book of famous modern American painters.

• Is a member of Washington Project for the Arts/Cochrane.

• His work was featured in the major motion picture “Little Manhattan” (2005) starring Cynthia Nixon.

Some years ago he saw our panels at a Northern Virginia flea market, and stopping dead in his tracks said, “Your panels… such symmetry, such texture… I must paint them. They inspire me.”

He now happily sketches and does preliminary design work on our antique tin panels before his commissioned pieces.

You can see some of his works on antique tin here.

Click the image to see the video.