Camp Creek Press

My lovely friend Astrid used two of my photographs and some of my words (I think!) for an article on decorating with vintage furniture. Very exciting! Thank you, Astrid! Unfortunately, the article is in Norwegian, so I can't read it. The title above translates to "Trash or Treasure?" I hope they decided treasure, in the end. ;^) Evidently, Norwegians aren't so hot on used furniture. Maybe I changed their minds!

When I started a private school with limited funds (a completely oxymoronic phrase), I began an eight-year odyssey of cheapness that has made me a legend in my own time.

Louise Caldwell wrote that a visitor to her school from Reggio Emilia inquired, Why do all of your (the U.S.'s) classrooms look alike? Because we all shop from the same catalogs, that's why. Except we couldn't afford the furniture in school classrooms. Which fortunately melded nicely with the Reggio philosophy of making classrooms look more like home -- with beautiful wood furniture, lamps, plants, etc.

So our writing center had a vintage wood desk, our library nook had a vintage wood settee, and our books sat in lovely handmade face-out shelves. Which cost $1, $25, and $4, respectively.

And visitors to our school were known to say, "Well, we can't afford such nice things." Really?! Like our handmade light table, which cost $12 in materials and seats four children? Like our lovely mirrored shelves which we made ourselves? Like our wooden loft we cobbled together from two-by-four's? Why, I think you can afford such nice things.

My now-legendary ability to squeeze the life out of every nickel may have preceded my relationship with the school. I'd really rather not say. The fact that I have perfectly nice, new dishes at home but we eat every night in 25-cent antique china bowls? Not important. The fact that we have a nice, new sofa in the living room, but it's my thrift-store chair that has appeared in a magazine and on a design blog? Piffle.

The fact is, old (vintage) (retro!) things are imbued with life and warmth. New early childhood furniture can be cold and institutional. Introducing the things of home brings home and life and family into the classroom.

Read more about it: Aesthetic Codes in Early Childhood Classrooms: What Art Educators Can Learn from Reggio Emilia