Me and Dave are very much into being a part of our local Westchester NY community and especially love visiting the farms of our county as it feels like such a privilege to have them so close just at our fingertips. One of our favorites to visit is Stone Barns Farm right around the corner of Pleasantville, New York and in the spirit of giving back, I decided that one thing I could donate to them was my time and photography. They invited me to capture their Harvest Fest on October 5th and it was such a pleasure. Even in college when I first started honing in on my photography interests, I knew that people would always be my primary focus. I love freezing in time the moments of human interaction that sweep past the periphery faster than you can blink the eye. Childhood, family, the Fall season, the joy of taking a day off from work, being with animals -- these were all my primary focus at Harvest Fest and it felt so good to truly connect with what I first loved about photography as well as to connect the dots to what I am enjoying now with Old New House. Everything we sell is handmade, from a long time ago or today by me + Dave, and my initial connection is with the idea of who made it and how they intended it to be enjoyed, with the second connection being who will have it in their home and how they will enjoy it. It is a beautiful process to me and Harvest Fest has gotten me especially excited to photograph our new line of tables and to share them with the world!!

xoxo,

Melissa

Brand new to trade shows and expos of any kind, for those of you who don't know: we braved the sea of vintage this year at The Manhattan Vintage Show. It was quite the experience to say the least with our biggest expectations and hopes being to connect with a lot of new people outside of the world of the internet and to hopefully convert some of them to be ONH fans! We are a bit shy by nature so it was a big deal for us to go into the city, create a space from the ground up that represented our online shop, and to put ourselves out there: "here we are and hope you like it!". It was exciting and of course a bit scary but after the two days of working harder than we could have possibly imagined, we made it back to a rented apartment just in time to rock our baby to sleep and we thought to ourselves: wow, we did it, we actually pulled it off.

To say that the show went off without a hitch would be an outright lie. Getting down to the city from our humble abode in Westchester with an eleven month old baby who just doesn't do car-rides as well as a cargo van chock full of our most prized inventory was no easy task and came with some challenges (who knew you couldn't take a van on the highway? maybe you did?). Then of course we had to navigate parking for two vehicles. One that contained the baby and all of the stuff that comes with the baby when you do a weekend trip. Crazy amounts of stuff is all I can say! Next we had to shlep all of our belongings all while carrying our son and then the next morning (the day of the show) start the shlepping process all over again, to bring our inventory into the booth. Then came set up, then came fixing up, then came second guessing ourselves, then came food somewhere in there, and of course then came figuring out who would be with the baby since the babysitter was having trouble with city parking (who doesn't??), and then at some point after a lot a lot of coffee, came the beginning of the show. After that point, everything was just plain awesome. Our expectations of meeting and connecting with new people was absolutely exceeded by a million because the people we chatted with for lengthy amounts of time were just so amazing, it felt like a shame that we hadn't met them sooner.

The Vintage Show was mainly all about clothing but it was also about textiles (in come our rugs). We feared that perhaps we wouldn't fit in because our clothing collection was small (and not yet out there in the world, merely a hobby curated collection) but we had the opposite experience. While people were indeed interested in our small clothing selection, so many of them were interested in our rugs and home decor as well just as we had hoped! Not only did we connect with people about the rugs they needed for their homes, but we learned a lot too -- about clothing and about what everyone out there is looking for which was absolutely invaluable for us.

While it was a tremendous amount of hard labor and pushing ourselves beyond the depths past our pre-existing (baby-related) exhaustion, the show was overall such a great success and we enjoyed every minute of the experience! Until we do another one of these or have our first real pop-up shop (which we are getting serious about planning!), this was the last time we would see our customers + new contacts in person for awhile, so we were so thankful to have it!

**Such a huge thank you to Natalie Conn for the beautiful photographs, & Hilary and Lina for the tremendous amount of help throughout the show!

As the dust settles a bit from our very hard-work-filled past few weeks of the Manhattan Vintage Show, I want to write a little personal entry but know that there is so much to come all about the show with photos, our experience, and a big thank you to all of you who came out to see us!

It has not happened quite yet and we have for months been debating when to move our own hand-built Little Mod Sidecar into little D's room now that he is approaching 12 months old (wow!) and could probably use the crib next to the bed (opened up) as a better sleeping arrangement. The other day we caught him crawling into it over and over again laughing wildly to himself in his little avocado-riddled pajamas and then last night, I found him half in it (atop plush pillows) and half on the bed as I opened one eye to see if he was still sleeping after a couple hours of silence (woo hoo, 2 hours stretch of sleep!). I can't wait to transition it into another area of the house but I am having fun watching Little D amuse himself in it in the meantime!

As we approach his first birthday very swiftly, I am reminded that time with the little ones really goes by in a flash. This sleeper/sidecar will always serve as such a reminder of these wonderful first months of his life and my life with him in it.

Also in the world of co sleeping and sidecars, we recently we crafted our first 100% custom walnut version of the Little Mod by special request and it came out so beautiful when Dave was all finished with it. Walnut was an exciting wood to work with because we have always been admirers of it and it went to such an amazing family with such a strong little baby girl. Here is the listing for it, featuring the photos of the custom one before it went out -- http://oldnewhouse.com/collections/onh-furniture/products/little-mod-co-sleeping-made-to-order-walnut

We just love being able to build a custom piece of furniture for such a special reason --  for a baby's first months of life, keeping them nice and close to their mom!

And while we have lots of new vintage/antique arrivals hitting the site in the coming week (mainly - some awesome new rugs + art pieces), also be on the look out for some new originals on their way. We are working on some wall art pieces of our own as well as designing some other pieces of furniture with multi-funciton. Can't wait to share!

As people who live and breath rug, you'd think we'd have it all figured out in our own home but truthfully finding just the right rug takes time and patience (unless of course you see it in our shop and you know that's the one!) Since moving into our new house in August, it has been a bit of a slow but fun process getting things situated. To me the biggest project still remains: the entryway. Ours is tight and a bit awkward which means of course it should be amazing when we are done figuring out what to do with it!

Dave has some big plans for make custom shelving (one of those to do's to add to the list of many home creations!) because it is a bit narrow for typical furniture. I am looking forward to seeing what he comes up with that is both unique, practical and baby-friendly (as our current reclaimed metal stand is not!) but first things first -- we must find a rug runner! Naturally we sometimes fall a bit in love with our own merchandise and are always a bit sad when we send them off, so even though we will likely source a brand new vintage piece for ourselves, I will have some fun showing off some runners of our own that might work well in the space --

When I realized the other day that it might actually be time to move our co-sleeping sidecar into little D's bedroom where it would begin its new life as a bench, I couldn't help but feel a little sad. After all this was the bed Dave built from scratch, this was the bed I brought my little (or big however you view a 9 pound newborn) guy home to rest, this was the bed in which my tiny nugget sprouted wide open by week two (cuing us to stare in amazement at the thought of how tall he might be one day), and this was the bed lest we not forget that I moved and shimmied on our antique rug for nearly 2 months before D was even born bringing a ballooned pregnant version of me to worm out of bed 12 times a night for bathroom breaks all because I wanted to "get used to it". This was the bed made from wood and more importantly made from love and this was the bed where it all began.

I remember being 6 months pregnant and researching baby beds and getting so caught up in the perfect crib and perfect "unit". We lived in a boxy one bedroom at the time and knew we would still be there upon the baby's arrival so a crib just wouldn't work. We read a lot about co-sleeping and bassinets and mini cribs and the list went on. When I presented all of my findings to Dave, he said something I had heard many a time before: "I'll make it!!" Now don't get me wrong, he is an artist, an inventor and a true craftsman and I love everything he creates, but the man literally wants to make everything (if i said i needed a new toaster or pair of shoes, he would be gearing up to make them) and there just isn't enough time in the day! Needless to say I was not convinced that he would have the time to build this perfect baby bed that I had been dreaming up -- one that would not be deemed useless after 3-6 months like so many of them seemed to be. He proved me so very wrong when the "unveiling" day came. As he stood on top of where our baby would one day lie, and smiled ear to ear saying to me "this is how strong I built this...so he can sit in it one day!", I felt so much love in my heart that I truly thought it was going to burst. And I certainly didn't know then that this is where I would be now: carrying and rocking and cooing and dancing with and loving so inexplicably this 9 month old baby boy who's bed I am just not ready for him to sit in yet.

:: Our Little Mod Sidecar is modeled after the bed that we built for our first son ::

Since I had a wedding to photograph a bit of a ways away in the Berkshires last weekend, we decided to make a family trip of it which besides our slightly awkward bed and breakfast accommodations with a baby who just doesn't understand sleep yet, was completely idyllic and beautiful especially with the colors of Fall sprouting up all around us. We spent most of our time antique-ing (naturally), eating, and walking -- all of which was fantastic. On the way back home we stopped in the cute little town Hudson which Dave had raved about for years and was a first time visit for me. It reminded me a lot of where I went to college - Ithaca - and I really dug it, especially the gourmet food truck tacos that were obviously a must try during our sidewalk stroll.

Such a fun trip and while the only oldie we brought back with us was a 1960s geometry book that had a cover with images that looked like our logo (so not selling!) it was nice to take a step back for some personal time. And of course we are now counting down the days until our next vacation whenever that will be!