"We made it up as we went along," says Fitzgerald. When a friend called at 10:30 one night to report that he'd seen a set of kitchen cabinets from the '50s piled in a Dumpster, for example, the couple jumped into a van and headed for the plunder. They hauled out the rusted steel units, powder-coated them white, and installed them in their kitchen. They created a kitchen island by topping an old engineer's toolbox with a new stainless-steel counter.
When Jeffcott became pregnant, the couple's remodeling priorities shifted—"more carpet and less industrial," she says—though their style didn't change one bit. Today, their son's room is a comfy nest furnished with a 1940s bedroom set that once belonged to Jeffcott's mother and a globe that Fitzgerald has turned into a ceiling light fixture. Purely decorative vintage toys are lined up along shelves, while more everyday ones (like a beloved Thomas the Tank Engine set) are stored in milk crates on the floor.
Although midcentury pieces set the overall tone, Fitzgerald and Jeffcott do mix in other periods. Framed board games from the '20s decorate the living room. Metal Planet floor lamps (iconic designs from the '70s) are scattered about. Jeffcott's own photographs—scenes of domestic ordinariness—add a contemporary edge, while new IKEA shelving holds record albums, box cameras, and other never-gonna-sell collections. Many of their possessions, though, are under constant consideration for resale. "Sometimes we'll ask ourselves, 'Do we really need this?' about some item or other," Jeffcott says. "If we don't, it goes down to the shop."
She and Fitzgerald got the idea for the store while they were decorating the apartment. Once they became parents, they wanted flexibility in their schedules so they could both spend as much time as possible with their child. While Fitzgerald refurbishes an old church or repaints a piece of found furniture, Jeffcott minds the store, which is open just Wednesday through Saturday. Her work ranges from searching for products online (the shop's inventory includes reissues of vintage designs as well as new items, such as children's dinnerware from Japan and plush toys by an Australian artist) to taking photographs of items for sale on the Arthur's Circus website.
On the other three days of the week, Jeffcott and Fitzgerald hang out with Arthur: making play dough, going to a neighborhood café for tuna melts and cupcakes, and tidying up—their son has been known to sneak vintage wooden blocks from the shop up to his room. As Jeffcott notes dryly, "I guess he has inherited the family talent for rearranging."
