the kitchen, splashed in elegant, clean, white paint. The appliances there are modern, but the vintage touches still exist, such as a wooden sign above the sink that reads, “Wm. J. Fry Dried Herbs.” Directly off of the kitchen, an open room has at its center a small table flanked by small, twisted-metal chairs, the kind you might see in a 1950s malt shop. A series of small hand brooms are precariously stacked on the wooden tray of a chalkboard hanging on one wall of that room. Keep walking, and you’ll marvel at an entire wall of the dining room, which features floor-to-ceiling cabinets, also painted white. Their glass doors reveal all manner of ceramic cooking vessels utensils stacked neatly inside. At the dining room table, in the place of cloth or plastic placemats are slabs of slate. Natural light pours into the high-ceilinged living room, where Brenda says she enjoys watching the sunrise and sunset each day. On the coffee table, a large, wooden bowl holds a ball of string as large as a grown man’s head. Across from the coffee table, a big block
of wood resembling a tree stump has been polished smooth and is used as an end table. It’s the large pieces, like the coffee table that appears to once have been a big wooden crate that Brenda likes best. Upstairs in the Kilgores’ home, ceramic jugs are stacked atop a wooden icebox in an open area Brenda where Brenda does her paperwork for the couple’s business. The guest room, meanwhile, is small but cozy, with a much lower ceiling; a bed with an iron frame is the centerpiece, and hanging next to it and above the nightstand is a series of small mirrors and frames. At the antique shows, furniture is the biggest seller for the Kilgores. “We had amazing hardwood cabinets the last time, and the time before that, we had a 50-foot counter. Two people came to our booth and said, ‘Ralph Lauren needs that for his store!’ And we’d go, ‘OK, do you have his number?’” Brenda chuckles. Every merchant at every antique show has
a centerpiece to their collection, the one piece that draws the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of the crowd. “You have to have an ‘Oh my god!’ piece,” Brenda says. “For instance, once, we had an oyster shucking table, and it was beautiful. It had black legs. You always want that ‘Wow’ piece, that piece that makes you go, ‘I’ve got to have that!’ Usually, it’s furniture.” A few keepsakes here and there Yes, the mirrors are ever present in most rooms of the house. Though they make their living in selling antiques to collectors, there are a few pieces in their own home that Brenda and Mark say will always be priceless to them. One such piece, a larger, white, framed mirror, hangs in the couple’s guest bathroom. “That mirror is one of my favorite items. It belonged to my grandpa,” Brenda says, adding that she grew up going to auctions with her father. “When I was 13, I asked my dad if I could have it, and he told me to go and ask my grandpa. Of course, he gave it to me, but I was scared to death.” Another item, a large, wooden room divider,
A repurposed vintage wooden tobacco basket enjoys a second life as an art piece adorning the wall of a storage room next to the Kilgores’ kitchen. Floor-to-ceiling white cabinets with glass windows reveal more vintage finds.
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