A few years ago, Jan Wiener stopped by her friend’s house to check on her husband Mark, who was replacing their garage door.
The wooden door he took down got a new coat of paint and is now the face of the sales counter in their new business.
When shoppers enter Vintage Faires, which opened Oct. 3 across from True Value on Route 17, they’re greeted by a table whose top is made from wood scaffolding from a shipyard and whose legs are old sowing machines.
Jan Wiener said she has a vision for nearly every object she sees, even things other people are throwing away.
“I can’t begin to tell you how many wooden ladders I’ve gotten out of a dumpster,” she said.
Several of the displays in Vintage Faires are old wooden ladders with decorations on each step. She said she even sold two ladders last week.
Jan Wiener has made a business out of her passion for refurbishing other people’s trash into a treasure.
She frequently visits estate sales and auctions to buy future merchandise; other items she found next to garbage cans left on the curbside. When someone she knew was going to demolish their barn Wiener said she asked if she could first take some windows and wood home and made a project out of them.
A bird feeder Wiener has for sale is made from a metal roof; a metal ring that once sealed a wine barrel is now the skeleton to a lush green wreath.
Her husband turned a bed’s headboard into a bench which she then painted and put up for sale.
In her own yard Wiener said she uses an older metal chicken feeder as a planter for her herbs.
“Everything that’s in here I would put in my house,” Wiener said.
Wiener said she’s traveled from Rappahannock to Virginia Beach to find the furniture and decorations now on sale in her store.
“I love to re-purpose furniture,” she said. “I love to see it stopped from going to the dump.”
The walls of Vintage Faires are lined with windows with stenciled quotes, and doors those with a do-it-yourself attitude can install in their home.
Her husband, who retired from the Navy, has a shop on their property where he helps her with many of the items they re-purpose. Jan said she does the painting, sealing and prep work – much of it in a room in the back – before bringing furniture and decorations onto the sales floor.
“It’s more rewarding when I see a young couple walk out with a piece of furniture and know they’re going to love it,” she said.
