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Alison: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. We just discussed thrifting clothes and why it's environmentally friendly, and often more satisfying than purchasing something new. The same can be true for furniture. As is the case with clothing, when you buy something like a table or a dining room chair at a secondhand store, you are very often buying something that is better quality than the particle board and veneer pieces that are mass-produced today.

In a world where the word vintage can be squishy, the definition of it, and where dupes and knock-offs abound, it can be difficult to know what to look for if you want to buy something that not only looks good but is well, a solid piece of furniture.

Here to help us now are two guests. Ashley McDonald is a store manager of one of my favorite places ever, Remix Market in Long Island City. I'm not gatekeeping anymore. It is amazing place to go. If you haven't checked out their Instagram, that is also entertaining. They are @remixmarketnyc. Ashley, thank you for everything you do.

Ashley: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Alison: Also joining us is Katie Okamoto, is a lead editor of sustainability at Wirecutter and author of the article Expert Tips for Buying Used and Vintage Furniture. Katie, thanks for coming on and sharing your reporting.

Katie: Thank you so much for having me.

Alison: Listeners, we'd like to hear from you. If there's a great vintage or secondhand furniture store in our area you want a shout-out, let us know. Let's crowdsource this. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Maybe you have tips for thrifting furniture. What's the best item you've ever thrifted from a furniture secondhand store? Call us or you can post a picture on Instagram @allofitwnyc. Our phone lines are open now. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC.

Katie, I'm going to start with a line from your piece. You write, "There's something about finally spotting the perfect coffee table and schlepping it up three flights of stairs that cultivates a bond." What's behind the bond?

Katie: [chuckles] Well, that's definitely a personal story, not something I just made up. Yes, I think very similar to what your previous guest was saying about vintage furniture, I'm sorry, about vintage clothing, with furniture, it's no shame at all if you need to fill a gap in your home and get something quickly. Definitely when we have a little bit more patience and there's a story, and some discovery in finding that piece, it really does become an emotional attachment. I think that we tend to hold on to those pieces for longer, get more enjoyment from them in the long run, and potentially be able to pass them on to others as well. Yes, that's where that comes from.

Alison: Ashley, how do you sort through the merchandise when it comes to Remix? What are you looking for?

Ashley: Oh, Lord. We get the full range of items here at Remix. We look not just for items that are super vintage. We obviously have a great eye for those heavier, beautifully carved wood pieces with great joinery, metal items just with beautiful chrome, intact caning, but we are also trying to look to give those fast furniture pieces more longevity and more of a life than possible.

Elsewhere, most people will just toss these things. A lot of IKEA cube storage will go to charities that come and pick up with Remix outside of what we're selling to the general public, and those sales help us to make those donations locally.

Alison: That's a really good model. It's a really smart model. There was a recent Wall Street Journal piece, Katie, titled "Your New $3,000 Couch Might Be Garbage in Three Years. This is why furnishings that used to last for a decade or more fall apart much sooner now, think fast fashion for furniture." Do you know what's behind this?

Katie: Well, a lot of it has to do with just how furniture is made and the materials that are being used. The furniture industry has really shifted towards this fast furniture model. Some of the ways in which the joinery is attached, it's using more like staples and things like that that don't hold in the same way, the upholstery is constructed differently.

That's back to what you were saying, you can often find better quality, more solid constructions, better bones, so to speak, on the second-hand market for a similar price point that you would for a piece of furniture that you're getting quickly. It does take some patience to get that of course, but I think it's a slow shopping mindset that can really be to your advantage down the line. Can save you money, and it's obviously softer on the planet.

Alison: Ashley, you threw out a lot of words, joinery, a whole bunch of different things. What are some things that people can look at when they look at used furniture so that they can make the determination about if it's well made enough for them?

Ashley: Absolutely. Your biggest, probably easiest way to figure that out is wait. Every once in a while, we'll find some expensive pieces that are surprisingly light. More times than not, heavy pieces are that beautiful solid wood, the metal instead of being hollow is full, completely full all the way through. Also, check for seams. In addition to joinery, if you open a drawer and look at where the front hits the side, you have something like a dovetail that'll tell you that it's more well-made.

For veneer items, almost every time you'll be able to find those seams right on those edges, and that'll tell you that the interior, once you get a leak in there, whatever's inside is going to swell and that's going to cause a problem.

Alison: Good advice. Let's talk to Judy from Melville, New York. Hey, Judy. Thanks for calling. You're on the air.

Judy: Hi, Alison. How are you?

Alison: Doing great.

Judy: I went to a secondhand furniture store and saw a rickety living room furniture piece, was a chair. I couldn't even try it out because I couldn't sit in it because it was that rickety. It had the most horrible fabric on it, but I got it for a steal. I took it to my re-upholsterer. He re-glued it, he remade it, and it is now a coveted piece in my living room by all of my adult children. They all want it when I go.

Alison: Judy, thank you so much for calling in with your story. Let's talk to Christine from Brooklyn. Hi, Christine. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Christine: Hi, Alison. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to give a shout-out to Big Reuse on 12th Street in Gowanus. They have used furniture but also just by the way used clothing as well. Their inventory is constantly changing, so you never know what you're going to find, and you can find amazing pieces. I myself was very lucky to find a mid-century modern dresser there which I love. Absolutely, the older stuff is quality and made solidly and you just can't beat that.

Alison: Thank you for calling in. This text says, "Build It Green in Brooklyn is a great source for furniture as well as construction items. I have a high-end stove that was $100 instead of $1500, everyone, but they also have great antique and vintage furniture." We are talking about secondhand furniture with Ashley McDonald store manager at Remix Market in Long Island City, and Katie Okamoto. She is the lead editor of sustainability at Wirecutter.

Katie, in your experience writing about secondhand furniture, what is the role of haggling? How do you feel about haggling? How do store owners feel about haggling?

Katie: That's a really good question that to be honest, I don't really know how store owners feel about haggling. I will say, just in general, some really good advice is to look and do a ton of research, the more obsessed you can become. This is what advice I've heard from a lot of thrifters across the board, the more research that you do and the more familiar you are with price points, the better, so you may have an advantage to be able to come in with an informed take and not feel like you're low-balling somebody, but be able to give a reasonable counter offer.

That's definitely easier if you're working in person or on a direct person-to-person platform such as Craigslist, there obviously some risks involved there but yes. I would say number one is, do a lot of research so that you can act fast when the time comes and have an informed sense of cost.

Part of that is also understanding for especially for items that are billed as being vintage because they are from a designer such as like [unintelligible 00:09:32] and some of these high demand mid-century designers, really looking at what are the telltale signs of fakes so that you're not paying a premium price for something that actually is not real?

Alison: Ashley, Remix is part of The Junkluggers universe.

Ashley: We sure are. That's canon.

Alison: I'm a frequent flyer with The Junkluggers. Can you explain to folks how it works?

Ashley: Yes. The Junkluggers established us realizing that with their mission to recycle as much as possible from jobs, clearing out apartments, businesses, and anything in between, that they didn't have much of a home for furniture or housewares because of the mixed media content of these pieces. It would take a lot to pull these pieces apart and recycle each and every fabric, the foam, the wood, that sort of stuff.

They founded us to find those things at home and recycle them, which is exactly why we have that program to donate, but also why we sell such a wide range of amazing things here. That's exactly how that works.

Alison: What is something that has showed up in the store and everybody just gathered around and went, "Ooh. Wow."

Ashley: It's still on sale on the floor right now. There is a beautiful mirror with backlighting. We've never had one come in so lovely. I think one that really stands out to me that has a great story is we had an original Marilyn Monroe photo come in, and we had a customer come in and she said, "My family has been collecting pieces of hers for ages."

It was really meaningful to us. I think this is something that really means a lot to me and our staff here, that we're not just a part of receiving people's past stories, but we're creating new stories by giving these items life again. Marilyn got to join all of her sisters in the collection, which was awesome.

Alison: That's an amazing story. Let's talk to Larry calling in from Westbury, Long Island. Hi Larry, thanks for calling All Of It.

Larry: Alison, thank you for taking the call. I'm a volunteer on a 91-year-old fireboat, the John J. Harvey docked at 26th Street and Hudson. I'm always looking for period pieces to put the galley on the boat, and I came across a thrift shop, SK Odds & Ends in Kings Park, Suffolk County. What an amazing store full of records and furniture, and china, and clothing. The best part about it is the woman behind the counter who's just so engaging and friendly.

It's just a wonderful place to visit, SK Odds & Ends. I picked up a six-ounce cup that had a blue anchor on it, which is going to go in the galley on the boat. What an amazing find. I just wanted to mention that.

Alison: Love it. Larry, thanks for calling in. Let's talk to Marilyn, calling in from Chelsea, online too. Hi Marilyn, thanks for calling.

Marilyn: Hi, Alison. Thank you for welcoming me on your fabulous show. I'd like to give a shout out to the Housing Works Thrift Stores. They carry furniture, as well as houseware, books, and clothes. The Housing Works proceeds go to the Gay Men's Health Crisis. It has locations all over Brooklyn and Manhattan, and it has an e-shop and an e-auction house.

Alison: Thank you so much for calling in Marilyn, really appreciate it. We are talking about secondhand furniture with Katie Okamoto. She's the lead editor of sustainability at Wirecutter, and Ashley McDonald's, store manager at Remix Market in Long Island City. I am so glad that Marilyn brought up online buying. Katie, two questions. My brain just went crazy.

I've seen a couple of these. You're on the subway and you look up and you see online stores that have used furniture. One is called Cherish and there's a couple of different ones. Now, when you buy clothing online, you can return it, even some thrifted clothing. What do people need to know before buying a couch, a used couch online?

Katie: Well, first of all, I would advise against buying a used couch online if you're new to buying used furniture name mainly because those are the things that the foams in those tend to degrade over time. Soft materials can conceal things like bedbugs and can carry odors or environmental allergens if you're sensitive to that kind of thing. While you can find some great use sofas and it's all about the frame, reupholstering that can get pricey. I would say it's not a great first foray into thrifting necessarily.

As for buying things online, there are a few options. There are places like Cherish. I have had experts recommend to me that you can use those actually to find small businesses that might be selling through those websites, and then you can go directly to that small business. In that way, you can also sometimes get around some of the price markups that come with those curation services.

There's nothing wrong with those curation services necessarily, but you definitely want to double-check all the measurements, look for "character notes" in there. The more reviews obviously about the service itself, the better. You don't want to be getting yourself into a situation where you're buying something sight unseen and they are known for not delivering well. I would actually recommend that people first look if they're going to be doing searching online, look to places like good old Craigslist and even Facebook Marketplace, which is incredibly popular nowadays.

Those aren't foolproof and you want to protect yourself in how you pay. I would highly recommend paying through something like PayPal which is a person-to-person protected payment service versus Venmo, and going to see the pieces online and shopping local in that way because you are going to actually get to see the thing that you're buying and decide if it's right for you. Give it a little wiggle, see if those if those hinges are okay.

Alison: That brings me to my question for you, Ashley. What is your quality control? How do you know this is something we want to put on the floor and expect people to pay for it?

Ashley: Well, we have that full range. We definitely keep in mind quality when we're pricing items. Everything here is somewhere between 60% and 80% off the retail price. That 80%, sometimes even 90%, we're completely aware that these items need some TLC. We love seeing DIY people come on in. We definitely give it a good wiggle, test out the drawers, check things out, but we're also really honest about those things.

We just launched a phone sale program both for our Queens and our Brooklyn locations, so people who maybe are out of town, can't necessarily get those items, can make an appointment with us and speak with one of our representatives so we can talk them through more of that. We have photos online of everything at remixmarketnyc.com, where you can check out both the Queens and the Brooklyn stock, and the photos there.

That's a good jumping point. We measure twice, buy once is definitely a good motto to have for buying furniture no matter what you do. For the phone sales specifically, we give it the once over and we always encourage our customers to give the couches and the chairs a good test.

Alison: When you think about pricing to the level you feel comfortable explaining it, there was one chair price at $294, very specific. How does the pricing work?

Ashley: The pricing, we do our due diligence. Do the research, see if it's a real, if it's a dupe, if it is maybe one of a kind. If it's something that we can track that's either real or a dupe, we research using Google Lens. Google Lens is definitely our best friend-

Alison: I'm sure.

Ashley: -especially when learning a lot about furniture. I knew very little about furniture coming in here and that, and picking the minds of our wonderful staff here. Everyone has different taste and different interests. We use Google Lens and we use what we affectionately call the Remix Hive Mind to figure out where we think the MSRP sits for us. Then we apply that math of anywhere from 60% to 80% off, depending on the quality of the item.

Then items that we can't ID, we try to find pieces in the market that are very similar and that are from the era because it tends to be vintage custom pieces. That's how we do it here. That's Remix magic behind the curtain.

Alison: Let's talk to Leslie from Staten Island. Hi Leslie. Thank you so much for calling All Of It.

Leslie: Hi. Thanks. I wanted to give a shout out to Every Thing Goes, which is in Staten Island. There's a furniture and clothing store on Brook Street and a book cafe, which has used books and some new books and organic coffee, fair trade. The thing I love about the stores is that we pick up the furniture at people's houses, and they get a free takeaway service. Also, that there's three floors of furniture and then another couple of floors of gallery space. There's high end, low end and what's in between. It serves the people in the neighborhood and it's not too far from the Staten Island Ferry Station.

Alison: There you go. Leslie, thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Steve from New Jersey real quick. Hey Steve.

Steve: Hi. I'm from Bridgewater, New Jersey in Manville. There's a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and all the proceeds there go back to Habitat for Humanity. All the workers there are volunteers. I found a wonderful corner, easy stand, electronics equipment that go on the shelf below, and then a cabinet on the bottom. It's solid wood, it was painted black, it had worn edges and it looks wonderful.

Alison: I'm glad it looks wonderful. Steve, thank you so much for calling in. In our last few moments, Katie and Ashley, same question to both of you. What's something you would love people to know before they go out on this journey of shopping for secondhand furniture? Really important, something you wish someone had told you before you went out shopping? Katie, can you go first?

Katie: Sure. I want to go back to that idea of being patient and thinking long-term. You can go into it defining the things that are non-negotiable to you, such as budget of course, and the need that you're trying to fill, but keep an open mind because part of the fun of it is the discovery. You might have your heart set on a specific-looking thing and actually find something completely different.

Really, I would think about this as a long-term project almost, rather than something that you need to do immediately. It's a change in how we shop for furniture, but that's really where the reward is.

Alison: Ashley, advice you would give to someone who's thinking, "Yes, I'm going to go second-hand furniture shopping."

Ashley: Yes. I think it's really important to be curious and open-minded beyond just patience. There are so many designers and different items out there. We are art specialists. He has been doing it for decades and he's still learning new things. It definitely counts in asking people the right questions. Definitely do a little bit of your own research when you can.

Most of us in the industry are just really passionate about what we do and the impact we're making. The caller that just called in talking about Habitat, we fundraise for them. We're a state-approved fundraiser for the New York and Westchester Habitat for Humanity. You never know what's going on behind the scenes of these businesses until you start to ask. That's the amazing thing about small businesses is the items have stories, but so do we. Definitely, feel free to chat us up sometime.

Alison: I love this. Spring and fall weekends are yard selling time. You get great stuff, especially in fancy neighborhoods. Words to live by. My guests have been Katie Okamoto, lead editor of sustainability at Wirecutter, and Ashley McDonald at Remix Market, Long Island City. Thank you for being with us.

Ashley: It's our pleasure.

Katie: Thank you.

Alison: Listeners, I want to remind you, we have transcripts that get posted on our web page of all of our segments. If you didn't hear the name of a place and you're like, "I didn't catch that." You can always go to wnyc.org/allofit and check out the transcripts. It'll be up in just a day or so. That is All Of It for today. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you, and I will meet you back here next time.

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