At Salvage Style, What’s Old is New

Salvage Style in Maplewood is loaded with stylish goodies to help you take the legwork out of secondhand shopping.

Photo by Laura Moss

Classic, mid-century modern decorating has never been more popular, but finding those treasures requires a keen eye and hours of scouting. Fortunately, secondhand boutiques like Salvage Style in downtown Maplewood help take guesswork and legwork out of the process.

The shop is loaded with goodies that owner Amy Hughes has amassed through estate sales, auctions and a vast dealer network. Since opening in 2013, she has curated timeless finds like sleek sofas and tables reminiscent of Rob and Laura Petrie’s iconic 1960s living room.

Among Hughes’s treasures are sustainable pieces reupholstered with non-toxic materials, industrial-look storage units, and fun and affordable accents. “Creativity—not fistfuls of cash—is the key to designing stylish living spaces,” Hughes says.

The small store is only open four days a week, but social media makes it a 24/7 business. “Instagram has become an especially important sales networking tool for me,” she says. “I post images all the time and my regular clientele can shop there for first dibs.”

She also runs a design consulting business while raising two kids with husband Jonathan Schuppe, a national correspondent for NBC News. Hughes inspires clients to restyle their homes by adding key pieces like an old rug, interesting lamp or unusual chair, or hanging their disparate artwork as a pulled-together gallery.

“Customers ask if it’s safe to invest in mid-century furnishings because they wonder if it might go out of style. So I help trend-proof their spaces by avoiding a cold, one-note look. Basically, I just suggest the styles that I love…rustic farmhouse, art deco, Hollywood Regency and sleek modern pieces that all play nicely together,” she says.

Another of Hughes’s passions is transforming cast-off architectural pieces into beautiful home furnishings. As a magazine editor and writer with This Old House for 15 years, she penned a column on architectural salvage and is still a contributor.

This ardent DIY-er also presents furniture-making workshops at local libraries. To create a nifty coat rack using vintage doorknobs as hooks, check out her book, Salvage Style Projects, a step-by-step guide to recycling old house remnants into cool decor.

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