Investing in quality: The benefits of well-made furniture and art

Home Improvement

Massachusetts designer Kate Maloney relies on locally made, quality pieces that can move from house to house. Here’s where to find some.

When Kate Maloney began designing the interior of a Cambridge home for a growing family, she was already partly done.

“We had worked together in their previous home,” said Maloney, whose interior design firm, Kate Maloney Interior Design (KMID), is located in Winchester. “They launched their life together in Somerville, but as the family grew, they moved to a bigger house in Cambridge. They appreciate well-made, local things, so we repurposed a number of the furnishings we had chosen for their first home.”

Maloney, who founded her company in 2003, likes to talk about quality, craftsmanship, and supporting local businesses.

“Handcrafted elements bring soulfulness to a space, and you will enjoy well-made pieces long after cheap ones have deteriorated,” she said. “And, in supporting smaller companies, you get a warranty of sorts — if there are issues, or you need to make changes, you have someone to go to, and they are willing to help.”

She points to the lighting fixtures over the kitchen island as an example. From Tracy Glover Studio in Pawtucket, R.I., the seven hand-blown glass globes range from spherical to pear-shaped to elongated ovoids in soft shades of blue, green, ochre, and cream. Crafted by a glass artist who studied in Europe and with American glass artist Dale Chihuly, they drove the color scheme of both the Somerville and Cambridge kitchens, though the rooms look quite different.

The Somerville kitchen took its color cues from the blue glass. In Cambridge, the cabinetry was inspired by the green glass, while the backsplash tiles echo the earthy ochre tones.

“The ceiling in the Cambridge kitchen is taller than the one in Somerville,” Maloney explained. “So we took the lighting fixture back to the studio. and they elongated the cords. It became the inspiration for the new kitchen’s design. Some of the glass is ribbed, some is solid, and each glass globe has the slight irregularity of hand craftsmanship.”

She said it was especially helpful — and unusual — to be able to reuse the dining room draperies.

“The ceilings in the dining rooms of the two houses were entirely different. in Somerville, the ceiling was higher, with a soffit under it. But the drapes were beautifully made by Designs in Blinds & Drapes in Waltham, from fabric by Lewis and Wood — Tribal in Limpopo Green — and it was amazing that we could repurpose them in the Cambridge dining room.”

Mike Denaro heads up the custom and to-the-trade part of Designs in Blinds, a company his father started in 1978. The company resized the drapes.

A factor driving such a project is the age and the quality of the material, he said. “If the textiles are very old, or have sun damage, they can’t be reused because they lose their structural stability and become too fragile. Also, you wouldn’t want to do this with off-the-shelf curtains. The cost would be prohibitive; it would be cheaper to buy new.”

For Maloney, quality, while costly, pays back in many ways.

“In the long run, you spend less for one piece that will last for a long time than for several versions of the same thing,” she said. “It’s far more ‘green’ to have pieces that can move from one home to the next, or go with children as they go off to their own homes.”

Much of the dining room was repurposed, including the Windsor chairs made by O and G Studio in Warren, R.I., the table from Sawkille Furniture in Kingston, N.Y., host chairs made by North Carolina’s Lee Industries, and the chandelier made by Urban Electric of North Charleston, N.C.

“The furniture is well-made and will stand up to years of use,” Maloney explained. “This is a family with growing children. Those Windsor chairs have to be sturdy and able to withstand a lot of wear.”

Maloney said adding artwork is the easiest way to make a new house feel like home — and to freshen it up.

“This is one of those investments that never wears out, yet you can constantly add new pieces, different pieces, or you can use a familiar, beloved piece to make a new space feel like it’s yours,” she said. “Tastes and styles may change, but if you invest in high-quality large pieces in clean and classic lines, you can always indulge in fads and current trends by changing out the coffee table, or the art, or the side tables.”

Julie Mussafer, who owns Jule’s Place, a gallery in the SoWa design district of Boston, is also an art consultant. She helped to place art from the Somerville house into the Cambridge home while augmenting the homeowners’ growing art collection.

“Viewing artwork in the context of the home ensures that acquisitions are made thoughtfully and confidently,” she said.

One of the best things a homeowner can do, Maloney pointed out, is to learn to recognize quality. High-quality upholstered furniture, for example, is constructed of kiln-dried hardwood, with upholstery built on eight-way, hand-tied springs.

“You may not be able to see those things, but ask. The closer you can get to the person doing the work, the better. You will find that skilled craftspeople love to talk about their work, about why they take the steps and use the materials they do, about what is important and what makes it special.”

Regina Cole writes about architecture and design for national and regional publications, with a specialty in historic architecture and the history of the decorative arts.