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Step 1
Furnish you home in high style with selections from Whit Hanks Antiques. Located at ground zero of the North Lamar shopping district and on the same block as Treaty Oak, Whit Hanks is home to a number of dealers, each with their own specialty, be it silver, lamps, Art Deco items, or American, French and English furniture from the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries. The antiques here are of high quality, so don't come in expecting any great bargains.
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Step 2
Give your Gallophile tendencies free rein at Dreyfus Antiques. It's a pretty hard store to miss: it's the only one on North Lamar, or indeed anywhere in Austin, with a big wrought iron Eiffel Tower out front. Owner George Dreyfus specializes in French pieces from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and always has a large selections of armoires, tables, chairs, buffets, sideboards and even pots. There was at least one occasion he stocked two huge elevated pulpits--just the thing for tying up the look of your private chapel. Dreyfus goes on regular buying trips to France and will even take customers along with him and help them negotiate prices and arrange shipping.
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Step 3
Take a chance, cough up five dollars and try out the City-Wide Garage Sale, held nine weekends a year at the Palmer Events Center. There's a little bit of everything here: Americana and Texana, old radios and record players, advertising collectibles, china and glassware and some stuff should probably go back into the seller's attic.
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Step 4
Looking for something cool and old but you're not really sure what? Maybe a unique gift? Uncommon Objects on South Congress is just the place. Buy a chair, a faded tin sign, a vintage pipe, religious print, or stack of old black and white snapshots.
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Step 5
Spend a whole day browsing the antique stores along Burnet Road, south of Koenig, but make sure you stop off at the Antique Marketplace. There's always a few dozen vendors here and the quality of their wares varies greatly. One booth might have excellent collectible books and the next over-priced armoires and cowboy kitsch. You have to dig around here, but there's a good chance you'll make a great find.
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Step 6
Decorate your Mid-Century Modern pad at Room-Service Vintage. If you're of a certain age--say late Baby Boom/early Generation X--you'll recognize a lot of the stuff in this store because every home you grew up in and around was furnished with it. From divans and armchairs to barbecue trays and coffee cups--it's all here. And the store's located in the hip shopping district of North Loop.
