Where to Find Vintage Furniture in NYC, and How to Tell If It's Worth Redoing

Greenpoint and Williamsburg Are Where the Dealers Are

North Brooklyn is the easy place to start, since the shops there have already done the hunting. You'll see a lot of mid-century pieces, teak and walnut mostly, along with sofas and chairs from the sixties and seventies that somebody picked out on purpose. You pay for that. A dealer's price has the finding and the hauling and the rent built into it.

It's worth asking what's been done to a piece before you fall for it. Some shops sell things as found, and some have already refinished the wood or put new fabric over the old. Neither is a problem, but you want to know which one you're buying, because new fabric over tired springs looks great in the shop and sits the same as it did before.

Bushwick and the blocks further out run rougher and cheaper, with more warehouse space and more pieces that need work. If you'd planned on redoing the piece anyway, that's often the better place to look, since you aren't paying for a finish you're about to replace.

Downtown Shops, Uptown Thrift, and the Stoop

The East Village and the Lower East Side still have small shops where furniture is mixed in with everything else. The pieces are smaller because the shops are, so it's a good area for side chairs, stools, small tables and lamps, and less so for a sofa.

Uptown works differently. The thrift shops on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side take donations from large apartments that are being emptied, and estate sales in those buildings turn up the kind of furniture that was bought to last. A down-filled sofa on a hardwood frame can sit in one of those shops looking dated and tired, and it's frequently the best-built thing you'll see all month.

Then there's the stoop. Park Slope and the brownstone neighborhoods around it are known for stoop sales and for things left at the curb with a "free" sign, and plenty of Brooklyn living rooms were furnished that way. Wood pieces from the curb are fair game. Be more careful with anything upholstered, and check the seams and the underside with a flashlight for bedbugs before it comes up your stairs. If you're not sure, leave it.

How to Check for Good Bones in Two Minutes

Start by lifting one corner. A frame made of hardwood is heavy, and a sofa you can lift easily with one hand is telling you what's inside. Then push on the back and the arms. They shouldn't rock or creak, and the whole piece shouldn't shift sideways when you lean on it.

Flip it over, or get down and look underneath with your phone light. You're hoping for solid wood with corner blocks screwed into the frame, and coil springs tied with twine if it's a sofa or an armchair. If what you see is mostly staples and cardboard, it was built to a price and no fabric fixes that.

On a dresser or a cabinet, pull a drawer all the way out and look at the corners. Joints cut into each other like interlocking fingers mean real construction. Check whether the top is solid or veneer by looking at the edge, since the grain on a solid top runs over the edge and veneer shows a thin line. Veneer is fine, and a lot of the best mid-century furniture is veneered, but lifting or bubbling veneer is a repair you'll want priced before you buy.

The last check needs a tape measure. Measure the piece, then measure your door, your stairwell and the turn at the landing. A sofa that can't make the turn is a sofa you own on the sidewalk.

Which Pieces Are Worth the Work

Redoing a piece isn't the cheap route, and on a full sofa the work can cost close to, if not more than, a new couch. It pays on a well made frame that fits your room, and you get to choose the fabric. You end up with something you couldn't have bought off a floor, on a frame that's already shown it can last fifty years.

Mid-century wood is usually the safest bet. A well made table, dresser or credenza from the last century takes a proper refinish well, and that's the bread and butter of furniture restoration. If the wood looks dull and dark and you can't tell whether the finish has failed, there's a simple test in our piece on whether a finish needs stripping or just cleaning.

Some things aren't worth it, and it's better to hear that in the shop than after you've carried it home. A mass-produced veneer table with a swollen top may not be worth what it costs to restore. A stapled softwood sofa won't be either, however good the shape is. Chairs are the forgiving case, since they take less fabric and less labor, and a chair with a solid frame is very often worth doing.

Send a Photo Before You Buy It

You don't have to guess at any of this in the shop. Take a picture of the piece and one of the underside, and send them to us before you hand over any money. Most dealers will hold a piece for an hour while you think, and a photo of the underside usually tells us whether the frame's worth it.

We pick up from walk-ups, lofts and brownstones across Brooklyn and the rest of the five boroughs. Pickup and delivery are available, and the charge for it is on the written quote, so you can add it to the price of the piece before you decide. You'll have a timeframe before anything leaves your apartment.