What makes a house a home?
This question drives most of our decorating decisions at The MacPherson House, and our answers vary from "the people within it!" (of course) to curating a collection of furnishings that reflect the historic nature of the house.
When we renovated the MacPherson House in 2020, we used the original 1920 blueprints as a guide to our restoration journey and made a conscious effort to restore (not replace) original architectural elements. In fact, it made hiring contractors easy! Anytime someone came through and with a list of things to "rip out" we said, "Thank you, next!"
Now, when it finally came time to furnish this grand 6 bedroom home, we essentially started from scratch. The cottage had come furnished, and we re-purposed many items like the oil painting of a woman in white that now sits proudly above the dining room fireplace. But the rooms themselves were empty.
In one memorable episode, I mentioned to my husband Michael that we would need to source dressers and wardrobes for the upstairs bedrooms, as the closets had all been re-purposed as en-suite bathrooms. He had an upcoming overseas deployment for his job in the Army fast approaching and went out for the day on Saturday...he may have mentioned something about "antiquing," but at this point he stopped by his favorite antique stores with any free moment he got, so that wasn't unusual.
He returned home that evening saying, "I got the wardrobes you wanted!"
"Wardrobes?," I asked. Plural??
"Oh yes! I got 7!," he said proudly. Now if that isn't Michael Stevick's dream antique shopping spree, I don't know what is.
It turns out, one piece was a buffet that works pefectly as a coffee and tea bar in our front hallway, and one was so enormous that we moved it to the basement and nicknamed it "Narnia." The rest found homes in the bedrooms, and each collected piece adds to the character and authenticity of the home. While they didn't come with the house, we took care to source most of the antiques in the home in and around Fayetteville, so they do accurately represent the history of our region.
Some of our favorite Fayetteville antique shops are Blue Bike Antiques, Lodestone and Dixie Antiques, all within a couple miles of the Inn. You can find these and many more on the NC Antique Trail!
What do you look for when collecting pieces to furnish your home?
