Second Chance Art & Accessories turns salvage into treasured antiques

Imagine owning a relic from an old hotel in Paris? Or the hat rack used in a Chicago Jazz Age speakeasy that is now long gone?

Many people would love to have such relics in their home and now they can with a little imagination and the help of Second Chance Art &Accessories based in Minooka, Ill.

The business was founded by Amy and Derek Manning when they were in the busy flipping houses. They would regularly find old doors and windows left behind in the attic and basement. Rather than throw them out, Amy started repurposing them, not as windows and doors, but as coat racks, bathroom towel racks and wall décor with the help of her handy husband, who has some pretty shrew carpentry skills.

The business has grown to the point now where they actively look for architectural salvage to transform into art for the home. Together, they give a second life to their vintage finds, many item of which have a colorful backstory while others, get items get a fictionalized history courtesy of the Mannings.

"Our goal is to take vintage salvage and transform it into a new concept that you can use in your home that is beautiful and interesting," says Amy. "We are not trying to make them completely perfect. We want to leave the vintage character. We are not trying to make them look new, but clean them up to be upscale but retain the vintage character. 

"I like the idea of giving something a second chance," Amy adds. "It is a metaphor for life. Everyone can have a second chance. It doesn't mean your history will go away. You can start over and become something beautiful and unique but still has the scars that made you what you are."

Case in point, anyone would think that this mid-century palette from a manufacturing company of some sort had seen its best days and was headed for the curb. Where someone else would see trash, Amy and Derek saw treasure and potential. 

"It was about six inches tall, so they created an apron for it from found barn wood. “Then, I thought about who might have used the palette and researched the era is it from," remembers Amy. 

Cigars are popular today  so her research led her to a cigar manufacturing business, which is long defunct, based in Havana. Amy handprinted the actual company name and the name of its most popular cigar on the palette. “It is a mid-century palette, so we created the logo based on that time period and I came up with the design. People like having an antique that has a backstory," says Amy, even if it might be fictional.

The Platinum Lounge art (below) is based on a real jazz club that operated in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. The Mannings took apart an old door they found to recreate this piece with a logo from the long-gone Platinum Lounge, including the actual business address where it used to stand. The hooks are made from vintage hand drills and are designed to hold a lot of weight.

When creating a piece, Amy will look at it and determine the feel of the piece. “I thought this piece was particularly French country, so I imagined a small country inn in Marseilles,” she says of the vintage door below.

Amy looked at a street map to find where this inn may have existed and settled on a street, but she made sure the street number was fictional in this piece she created called, Hotel de Marseilles. It uses salvaged door knobs and the mirror is new, but antiqued to appear old.

Hotel de Paris (above) is similar to the Hotel de Marseilles piece, but in this case, Amy decided to leave the original white paint on the wood rather than refinishing it. Hooks are made from the a drill chuck element of a vintage hand drill, the opposite side of what she used in the Platinum Lounge piece. They cut apart the drill and reconfigured it using vintage glass knobs for hooks.

Cutting apart a vintage hand drill means that both ends of the drill can be repurposed. 

Amy and Derek actually established their business in 2004 working with vintage maps as wall decor. Here, you can see a three piece map of Europe, which was printed in 1933. Often they will use pull down maps from schools and cut them down to fit into old storm windows. "Derek is really good and can adjust the size of the storm windows to make a better fit," says Amy of this piece (below) that was mounted in three sections. Amy handprinted the names of key cities to add visual interest.

Many of their items are not only beautiful, but practical and useful, too. For example, the bookshelf below is made from the base of a door. The louvered shelves were from a vent in the top of a barn. The rail is from an old brass bed. Ex Libris, roughly translated from Latin means, "from the books of" so Amy added her and Derek's initials, so anything can be customized.

Similarly, while Second Chance Art & Accessories sells many stock items, any of their pieces can be personalized. I ordered a custom shelf to honor my father's business, which I don't have any souvenir of, and Amy and Derek carried out my vision. See the story on that here.

Most pieces can be customized, as shown here, with your initials or a special place or date to commemorate a special event.

Another practical item is this bathroom shelf and towel bar from the fictional Hotel de Paris below. The towel bar is made from new gas pipe fittings but the radiator fin is from an old radiator that Amy and Derek cut apart, cleaned, polished and clear coated. The chains are antique and the brackets that hold the chain are actually old window latches, which proves the Mannings don't let anything go to waste. "It works for towels or toilet paper," says Amy. "It is a fun conversation piece for a powder room or guest bath."

This wall art featuring a patisserie, French for pastry shop, is made using an authentic grain sack Amy purchased from a connection she has in France. The town she used for the fictional pastry shop is the town that is named on the grain sack.

Prices for this kind of artwork starts at about $300. Items can be purchased online at Second Chance Art & Accessories or seen by appointment only. The items can also be found in many retail outlets nationwide. To find a location near you, click here. Otherwise, Amy and Derek also make the rounds of several fine art shows. A complete list of events is here.

To read more about how Amy and Derek repurpose old treasures into new keepsakes, click here.

MacKenzie-Childs introduces enamel flatware

I've always loved the whimsical designs of MacKenzie-Childs. I'm big on color, so this line of home accessories is a natural for me. So I was pretty excited to see that the company has just launched a line of enamel flatware.

It comes in two collections: Courtly Check and Flower Market.

“I have a fascination with flatware - from rococo to modernist to camp, I love the endless combination of style, and the utilitarian that can be found,” says Rebecca Proctor, creative director of MacKenzie-Childs. "These are things we use every single day, yet how often do we even notice them? It seemed very natural to me to create a line of flatware to complement our tabletop collections. Our new enamel flatware and serving pieces were designed specifically to work with the vibrant Courtly Check and Flower Market dinnerware collections. What's even more fun is that all the pieces can be mixed together to create your own unique table settings.”

Items include standard ($150) and serving ($75) fork, knife and spoon sets, a canapé knife set ($38) ranging to iced tea spoons ($50) and an ice cream scooper ($38), perfect for those hot summer days. As well as, all the necessary barware for your summer entertaining needs.

To see more, visit MacKenzie-Childs.

The secret to making more space in any room: think vertical

Would a sideboard and hutch meant for a dining room work in a bedroom? Yes! It works especially well if you are running out of space and need to "open" up the room a bit.

I wanted to add an upholstered chair and ottoman to my bedroom but there was no more room left. The only option I had was on a wall where a long triple dresser stood. Hmmm, if I replaced that long triple dresser with vertical storage, would I be able to fit in the sitting area I so desperately wanted?

I set out looking for something vertical that would house what would ordinarily be found in a bedroom dresser, such as lingerie, folded clothes and on the top, perfume bottles and maybe a jewelry box. I love the idea of storage and merchandising displays commonly used in old time general stores. They used cabinets that would house dry goods and notions for display behind the sales counter. With that idea in mind, I started looking at antiques.

Shipping prices on Ebay for the ones I found was astronomical or the items were available for local pick-up only so I thought, why not go with something new that looks old?

I found exactly what I wanted in Restoration Hardware's French Casement Double-Door Sideboard & Hutch. 

Yes, this is meant for a dining room. Yes, it does have glass windows, which may not show off such intimate items to their advantage. And yes, due to its height, there is no dresser top on which to display perfume or a jewelry box.

All these things were against me, but I was determined to make it work.

Below you can see the long wall where I had a triple dresser with an attached mirror. I removed it from the room and replaced it with the French Casement Double-Door Sideboard & Hutch. The distressed white finish was perfect for the room and the piece was narrow enough to leave me plenty of space for the chair I wanted to add.

The French Casement hutch is available with solid doors, but I liked the idea of having the glass doors so that I could display some of my favorite things. There are other similar styles of sideboard and hutches at Restoration Hardware, but I really loved the hardware on this particular unit.

With four shelves in the top portion of the hutch, I had plenty of space for storage.

On the uppermost shelf, I have a pillow that I use to display my pins so that I can see them. If I can see them, I will wear them. Next to the pillow is a faux vintage perfume bottle. (Psst...I purchased a new bottle and applied a vintage perfume label to it.)

On the opposite side of the top shelf, I display some of my hats, other vintage style perfume bottles and a hatbox that I found at Michael's. The shelf below the top one, includes folded tops along with a mercury glass apothecary jar and some interesting perfume bottles for added visual interest.

On the next two shelves, I have space to display two jewelry boxes, perfume bottles, along with vintage photos and vintage handkerchiefs.

On either side of that, I have folded clothes and white wicker baskets that I purchased from Wayfair that hold lingerie items. The baskets have a cotton lace lining so I don't have to worry about the wicker snagging stockings, etc.

The lower, solid door portion of the cabinet, includes more of the same wicker baskets. I'm able to store everything that I had in the original triple dresser and more! Now, I was able to store even a few handbags with room to spare. I used slate coasters and chalk to label the contents of each basket. Because the wicker and the lining of the baskets were white-on-white, I added turquoise ribbons to each to coordinate with the color of the room.

With the hutch finished, I had more than enough room for a chair. I purchased the Marcel Upholstered Club Chair from Restoration Hardware  in the Vintage Velvet Fabric and the color Spruce. The ottoman is the Cabriole Ottoman in the same fabric.  To replace the mirror that was formerly attached to my triple dresser, I purchased the Medium Piper Frameless Mirror from Pottery Barn.  I hung the mirror on the wall using a porcelain flower-shaped drawer pull that I found at Hobby Lobby. 

The table and magazine rack are antique wicker pieces that I refinished. The throw is the Cozy Cable Knit Throw from Pottery Barn.

That's how you take dining room furniture and repurpose it for a bedroom!

Custom gift idea: Design your own fragrance online

If you're looking for that special, one-of-a-kind gift, here's an idea: design your own fragrance online. Yes, online. A company aptly called UNIQUE, let's you be your own fragrance designer by combining your favorite essences into your own signature bottle. And you do all of this online.

UNIQUE is new to the U.S. market, but is already established in Europe. Here's how it works:

First, you go to www.UniqueFragrance.com and click on Create Your Own. Next, choose your gender. 

Copyright Unique Fragrance

Then, you choose a style that suits your taste or, if you are buying a gift, the taste of the recipient. Think of your or his/her personality. Are they elegant or sporty?

Copyright Unique Fragrance

Based upon your input, you can combine up to six essences from a range of more than 50 scents. I know you can't smell them, but they are fairly common scents, like vanilla, rose or grapefruit.

Copyright Unique Fragrance

Then, you customize your perfume bottle with a name, design or photo.

Copyright Unique Fragrance

The company tells me that more than 150 billion combinations are possible. So does that mean you are likely to make a mistake. Not necessarily, the company says. UNIQUE has more than 90,000 customers in Europe and has sold more than 130,000 personal fragrances so far. They offer a full money-back-guarantee and say returns are as low as 3%.

Yeah, but how much does it cost, you ask? The price isn't bad. Custom fragrance creation and shipping takes only 7-14 days and prices start at $69.90.

Check it out. 

Preserve your family memories; turn them into one-of-a-kind art

We all want to preserve our memories, especially those of our ancestors. It seems the older I get, the more important it is for me to honor my ancestors by preserving their stories and achievements so that my child and my child's child can remember them. No one wants to be forgotten. No one wants to think their time on this earth meant nothing. So I feel it is my duty to preserve what I can of my family's history. Sounds corny now, but believe me, this is a feeling that gets increasingly stronger the older I get.

All that said, it isn't always easy preserving the past when you're missing pieces of it. That was my problem. Here's the story in a nutshell:

My grandfather owned a bakery in Oak Park, Ill., called Dangels' Pastry Shop. It was a pretty healthy business as evidenced by the number of employees shown here in front of the shop.

Here's a photo from inside the bakery.

Aside from these two photos, both of which are lacking, dates. I don't know much. I do, however, have a couple of antiques from the shop. Both are antique check writers.

Not surprisingly, my dad followed in my grandfather's footsteps and worked in the bakery business, only he specialized in cake decorating and worked for years as a cake decorator with Dressel's Bakeries in Chicago among others. Additionally, he had his own business on the side where he designed and manufactured cake decorations for sale to bakeries. For a short time, he had a shop front in Evergreen Park, Ill. where he provided wedding cakes. His business was called Dangel's Decorating Specialties.

I don't have anything from this business, not even a photo. When setting up my office, I wanted something of his; something that would be a testament to all his hard work and be a constant reminder for me and my family of what my dad accomplished.

The answer came to me in Second Chance Art & Accessories. Amy and Derek Manning, owners of the Minooka, Ill.-based business create one-of-a-kind pieces of artwork from antiques and salvage. They sell many stock items, but they also create custom pieces on commission.

The pieces they sell, include pub and wine cellar artwork, vintage kitchen, bath and laundry accessories as well as vintage coat racks, all of which look like they came out of an old hotel, jazz club or tavern. So, I thought...why couldn't they create something that looked like it came out of my grandfather's bakery and use the name of my dad's business, Dangel's Decorating Specialties?

I contacted them and we reviewed my idea. I wanted a piece that looked like it came off the wall from behind the bakery counter. Something that would say the name of the business and look like would have been hanging above the cookies, cakes and bread behind the counter.

Amy knew exactly what I wanted. Derek, being a skilled carpenter, created a shelf-like mantle to my design specifications from old barnwood. I opted for an antique white finish over stain to keep the look lighter and more feminine...more like a bakery. They added a railing from an old brass bed, below the mantle, so that I could use it to hang jewelry that I make. 

The hardest part was finalizing the typeface for the name of the business. My father's letterhead had the business name in a casual, simple script. Amy replicated the look exactly as I wanted, painted it onto a mirror that she aged to look antique, and then painted the drop shadow on the letters in "Dangel's" in gold as an accent.

I framed the original photos and have them displayed along with one of the check writers. In addition, I have colored glass and beads in three apothecary jars on the shelves to echo the bakery theme.

Amy and Derek of Second Chance Art & Accessories do great work and I couldn't be happier with the end result, which is the perfect way to honor my dad. I'm reminded of his creativity and artistry every day when I come to work now. You can see examples of Amy and Derek's work at their website, Second Chance Art & Accessories and they also attend many fine art fairs. Click here for a schedule. Their pieces are also for sale at a number of retail shops nationwide. For a complete list of retailers, click here.

Click here to see my review of their work along with some particulars on their business. I'll be preparing a blog entry soon on their work with fun stories about how they find the pieces for their artwork and how they transform so-called trash into treasure.