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Sustainable Interior Design is Found in Vintage Treasures

Michele Howell of Grand Tour Interiors, and daughter Corbin Winters host the “Simple Peasantries” Preview Party

My wife is an interior designer. With the exception of paint, she rarely buys or sells anything new. She favors vintage. Items with a past. Furniture with a history. Pictures and paintings that tell thousands of stories. Lamps, bureaus, footstools and silver lighters that have led tarnished lives.

Here’s how she works. Michele will discover a treasure at Goodwill or other vintage haunt. Perhaps it’s a six-drawer dresser. She will prescribe just the right paint color and a subtle hand-rubbed finish customizing the piece for her client’s home. Philippe, a third generation Belgian woodworker, one of Michele’s team of “Old World” artisans, will rejuvenate it.

Tour the “Simple Peasantries” Collection Below

Her work at Grand Tour Interiors is a celebration of “Renew, Reuse, Repurpose.” It is the epitome of sustainability. Nothing tossed. Nothing wasted. All things brought back for second and third lives.

Michele and our daughter Corbin, an interior designer in San Diego, hosted the first preview party of her collection of vintage wonders she calls, “Simple Peasantries.” Here is a two-minute tour of the treasures that are brightening lives in their new homes.

Simple Peasantries Open Studio from ParkHowell.com on Vimeo.