This week we’re hearing from Erynn Bell in Anchorage. Bell is the owner of Rethink Home, a used furniture store.
BELL: I went back to Ohio a few years ago to clean out my grandfather’s house, who was a semi-hoarder. It was just really interesting to go through all of his belongings and see how wonderfully made these older items were. It seems like nowadays, a lot of the decor, a lot of the furniture is disposable furniture that’s meant to last a few years. Whereas a lot of the furniture that I see at the store now and that I’d seen at his house may be 100 years old, but it’s still in great shape, because it was built to last.
Anchorage is very transient community. So people move in and out of state, and can’t always take their furniture with them, even if it was just purchased a couple years ago. So, we have a lot of really nice used furnishings and a lot of fun vintage decor. It’s a very eclectic, I guess is the way to describe it.
There’s always something new coming in every single day and it’s just amazing to see what people in this town in their homes or in their storage units that they are cleaning out. The whole point of Rethink Home is to rethink what is beautiful. Just because it’s used does not mean it’s not beautiful.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
