On a whim I bought this concrete bust of David on Etsy (from this shop) without any idea where it was going to go in our new studio. He now holds a place on our front console that is getting a great linen skirt made for it.
As designers, we shop on Etsy A LOT. Not only for newly made or custom items (as detailed in this post), but for antique and vintage items too. Etsy has become a bit of a “normal budget” 1stDibs in that there is some high end antique dealers, but mostly its small shops with decent prices for interesting goods. You just have to dig a bit more as it is a bit less curated, but in the best way possible! You can still find amazing deals on lots of things on Etsy, where as some other online vintage shops you cannot.
A good example of this was when we were looking for a pair of vintage x-benches for a great project below (you only get a sneak peek here as we are pitching it to magazine right now). We found the perfect set from an expensive vendor but perused Etsy to see if anyone else had a pair we could refinish. And we found the EXACT pair we loved for about 1/4 of the price. We had them repainted and reupholstered and they came out perfect and added that patina we were looking for in the space.
