Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, and other stores like them make a fortune selling hip, yet classic items for the home. They frequently take some humble object and make it new again by adapting it for other uses. For example, a hot-seller in one lamp department is an old surveyor’s tripod that has been turned into a floor lamp by running a cord through it and throwing a lampshade on top of it. You may have thought, "Why didn’t I think of that?" Good question.

Adapt the Present
Though these stores generally have a very high level of quality, what you’re really paying for in these situations is the idea, the inventiveness, the creativity, and not necessarily the execution. But why not have the pleasure and satisfaction of doing it yourself? If you condition yourself to look at everyday objects in your life as not exclusively tied to their original uses, it can open you up to all kinds of creative opportunities for decorating and furnishing your home.

Invent your Future
Know who Marcel Duchamp was? French guy. Artist. Don’t worry; doesn’t matter, but he once made an excellent point that bears repeating: Context is everything. The placement of an object defines it. Changing the placement of that object redefines it. Just for fun, try taking this grand idea and playing with it irreverently in your home. Consider how it would affect your home to let go of your assumptions about Where Things Belong, and What Things Are For. Moving things around is a lot cheaper than buying all new, and you may turn something you hate into something you love just by thinking about it in a different way.

For instance:

* Turn an old armoire into a home entertainment center.

* Convert a vintage dining room sideboard into a bathroom sink vanity.

* Gut an old upright piano frame and turn it into a home office.

[Image: Pianodesk.com]

* An antique child’s chair can be hung on a wall and used as a shelf.

* Take some ornate Victorian doorknobs and mount them on a wall for use as coat-hooks.

[Image: Collectionsetc.com]

* Use an old artist’s easel to display a favorite artwork.

[Image: Leoque.com]

* Adapt an old, ornate picture frame to show off your new Plasma Television.

[Image: framemytv.com]

These are just examples to illustrate the idea, but go foraging in your attic or basement, hit the garage sales, and make a game out of exploring the possibilities. It can be fun and rewarding and might save you a bundle over designer solutions. Don’t be afraid to be eclectic. It’s okay if your furniture is a collection of different styles. Make variety your fashion-statement. There are no wrong choices.

Embrace Your History
The other hot ticket at these sorts of stores is faux heirlooms—reproductions of antique everyday items that supplement their functionality with the feel of charming hand-me-downs. There's what appears to be a set of vintage binoculars, or a highly detailed set of wine glasses with the imprint of a long vanished Parisian hotel etched on the side. If you fill your house with these handsome gewgaws, you’ll give visitors a sense that you have a personal history much nicer than the one you actually had, that you came from Money, or that you may secretly be some exiled Prince that only managed to spirit away the clothes on his back... and of course, that lovely leather-bound desk set with matching quill pen. These stores are no longer content to sell you your future, now they want to sell you your past as well.

We are a country addicted to change. Despite some passionate devotionals to our country or nationality, we do not respect our own pasts. The consequence of this obsession with the Now, is that one day we turn around and realize that we’re longing for a history that we’ve left behind in the last move. So at some point, we buy our (or someone else's) history back, at top dollar.

A modest, authentic history is far more valuable that a glamorous, fictitious one. So rather than buying the mass-produced replicas of someone else’s past, go exploring in your own home, and unearth those family artifacts that represent your connection to your own history. A pocket watch, a handmade quilt, an enameled cigarette case, a gaming box—these items survive in our possession because they were treasured by their original owners, and they were bequeathed to us because of the connection we shared with them. As such, do they really deserve to be shut up in a trunk or left to molder away in an attic? Even if they have no monetary value, displaying them in your home where you can see them can be a comforting reminder of who you are and where you came from. Don’t worry about impressing others, or about the lavishness of the items. What counts is how they make you feel when you see them around you.

A Truer Reflection
If you decorate your home with your brain and not your wallet, and you mine your own history for design ideas, you’ll end up with a home that is a true expression of who you are. And that’s not something you can get from a store.

Written by Robert Bundy for Homeminders

[main image: Hemera | Thinkstock]