Todd Merrill Antiques
I saw this on BlinkDecor, one of my favorite blogs. Its a company called Tod Merrill Antiques.
I found this site interesting in a sort of esoteric way. Todd Merrill is a legacy owner of this store, which was founded by his grandparents Nathan and Margaret. The purpose of this company seems to be to offer antiques and reproductions of furnishings produced in America dn Europe during the last century.
Now a time range like that allows you to select a lot of different types of products. You could concentrate on early turn of the century americana, or instead focus on new york style products from the mid eighties. What makes a line successful, are which selections are made by the buyer.
In this way, a store is a lot like a giant canvas, with the artist using various products, decorative furnishings, home decor, and other lines to create a picture of a world impeccably decorated. These objects are arranged, illuminated, and set in place relative to one another, to create the percieved effect.
When you step into their world, or enter their website, you are suddenly surrounded by a kind of fantasy that faintly mimics real life. In this world, everything is presented in such a way that it makes you desire it.
The reason this particular store set me thinking in this way, is that generally I don’t like viontage furniture. I find that it is often less imaginitive, and a little more boring, than some of the overzealouse modern designs that are coming out today. However, I really lkiked what this store had to offer.
First of all, they don’t stick with any one era, at all. I was especially impressed with the selection of circa 1960’s “psychadelic” style furnishings, such as the chair below.
The other collection I really liked was the 1980’s style furnishings. Maybe it is just nostalgia for my youth, like a dream of childhood reawakened, I am suddenly reminded of an old art style I had always missed.
On the other hand, maybe it is just my love of crazy decor. Look at this giant hand chair!
Its like someone is constantly reaching up to grab your butt, every time you sit down.
One of the great things about their website, is that you can organize their products not only by type (chairs, tables, sofas, etc.) but also by the vintage year of its make. This allowed me to group all of the 60’s decopr on one page, and then easily switch over to a view of all of the 40’s decor. They did not, however, have a way to seperate out the 80’s decor. Another jab at my generation!
