The Thing We Didn't Come For.

The set was sitting on carpet in an apartment in Arizona.

White lacquer. Gold trim. Lane, from the 1980s. And pristine in a way vintage almost never is, as if someone bought it, set it down and then politely declined to live with it for forty years.

It felt like finding a unicorn.

I bought the whole set.

I've had a lot of favorite finds since, but that one is still my ahhh, I found it moment, the one I measure the feeling against. Something extraordinary, just sitting there, waiting for someone to walk in and notice it.

It makes sense that a white-and-gold 1980s set would be my unicorn. My taste runs postmodern 80s. I love the visual world of Scarface. I love Goodfellas. Some of that I can trace straight to my mother, Rose, who was in her twenties and thirties in that decade. She has great interior style, she loves art, and there were always cool abstract pieces on her walls. That world got into me early.

I don't hunt for objects

People assume sourcing is searching. You know what you want, you go get it. That's how a search bar works. It isn't how I work.

I hunt for a feeling.

I meander. I look. I feel. Then something catches my eye and a vision starts forming around it: oh, this would be cool here. I can see this in that room. From there it becomes a kind of story map. One object suggests a color, the color suggests a placement, the placement suggests something for the other side of the room I wasn't even thinking about.

I rarely walk into a hunt knowing exactly what I'll come home with. That's the point.

I can go looking for clothes, or jewelry, or a lamp, and come home with a new obsession. One day it was a little piggy bank. It wasn't on any list. I bought it, and now I collect piggy banks. Now I hunt for piggy banks. This is funny, because I generally don't like smalls, which is what I call all those little objects people love so much. Too many little things make me crazy. But the piggy banks get a pass. I always find room for them.

What I reliably can't resist are lamps, couches, and dining tables and chairs. I have absolutely no room to store everything I want to bring home in those three categories. This has never once stopped me from looking.

Come forth

Before I hunt, especially for a client, I set an intention. You could call it a little prayer.

It goes something like this: Okay. Come forth. Whatever needs to be for this person, make it evident to me.

It might be the vision already in my head. It might be something completely different. Just make it known. Wave it in my face. Show me: this is it.

The important part is for this person. Not for me. I'm asking to be shown what's meant for the client, which means staying open to something I never would have planned for.

The hunt travels with me

People hear "vintage sourcing in Los Angeles" and picture a tidy rotation of famous flea markets. I hunt everywhere: garage sale apps, Facebook Marketplace, thrift stores (mom-and-pop thrift stores especially), Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity. Whatever is around me.

Geography becomes part of the hunt. I also own Wild & Tame, a garden design company, so my days already zigzag across the city. If I'm working on a garden in West Hollywood, I set Marketplace to West Hollywood and search a five- or ten-mile radius. Driving from there to Malibu? Now I'm searching Malibu. Malibu to Torrance, I search along the way. Wherever life takes me that day becomes another hunting ground.

And yes, I'll ask AI: I'm in this area. Are there any mom-and-pop thrift stores I should look at? Any Salvation Armies? Any Habitat for Humanity stores? It can tell me where the doors are. It can't tell me what's behind them, or which thing in a crowded room is the one. Some things can't be Googled. You have to go look.

What they're searching for underneath

Clients often think they're looking for a particular thing. Part of my job is uncovering what they actually want.

Sometimes it's a color. Sometimes it's a mood. Sometimes it's connected to where they are in their life. Sometimes they saw something in a magazine and thought it was cool, but that object isn't what they need. I'm always trying to understand what someone is searching for underneath the object.

A lot of the time, we don't find exactly what they described. We find an unexpected surprise that gives them the feeling they were trying to create. Maybe it's a couch we reupholster to get the mood right. Maybe it's a great headboard, and then the sheets become the thing that completes the story. It's all connected. We create stories.

Working inside someone's home gives you an incredible insight into where they are, in their head and in their life. Why this transition? What do they need to feel?

Every client teaches me a why.

Do you need a moment?

I'm extremely collaborative. When I'm out hunting for a client and I see something, I text them a photograph. What are our thoughts on this? Does this resonate with you? Do you need a moment?

Sometimes I'll just say, I really like this. And sometimes, when I know something is special, I get more forceful: I really think we need to get this now. It's a great price. It's one of a kind. You don't have the luxury of thinking about this for three days, because it may be gone.

Vintage sometimes requires a decision.

If they say yes, we buy it. If it eventually doesn't work, we can resell it. I don't want sourcing to feel like I'm dictating someone's home to them. I want them inside the conversation.

That is the shape of personal vintage sourcing at Joey Rose. A client gives me an assignment, and we develop a sourcing brief around the thing and the feeling underneath it. Then I go out into Los Angeles, wherever the day leads, and hunt furniture, lighting, art and objects, sending photographs as I go. When something's right, I coordinate the purchase, and the delivery when it's needed. It's the same eye that goes into our interior styling, which often starts with the pieces a client already owns.

It isn't volume work. I'm intentional about who I work with. I don't want hundreds and hundreds of clients. I want the right ones, people who'll enjoy the process with me, because the collaboration is the point.

Good stewards

When I hand over a great piece, there's sometimes a tiny part of me thinking, God, I want that.

But there's a feeling that matters more: I hope they're good stewards of it. These pieces had lives before us. That matters to me.

I love being part of beauty. If something I found makes someone feel beautiful, or gives them a new perspective, or changes the way they see their room, or shifts something in them personally, that warms my heart. Especially when it's something they didn't know existed.

What I want, when someone walks into a room I've touched, is two reactions in a row. First: Wow. This is fucking cool. Then: Who would have thought that would work?

A plaid couch. A strange lamp. Something sitting beside something it shouldn't technically match, and somehow belonging. I don't want anyone to walk in, think "pretty" and forget about it. I want them to notice. I want them to ask about something. I want the room to start a conversation.

The one that haunts me

Not every hunt ends with the object. Sometimes I come home empty-handed, and that doesn't feel like failure to me. It makes me want to hunt harder. Like a hunter after game: Oh, you're out there. I know you are. I'm going to find you. And then the question becomes: what am I going to find on the way there?

Worse than not finding something is finding it and walking away.

The black panther table and the matching light stands. I've always been obsessed with them. Three times I've had the chance to buy them at ridiculous prices. Once in Arizona, the full set for around $900. I didn't. Then one in Vegas for around $300. I didn't buy it. Then Arizona again, for around $200.

And I still didn't buy it.

I haven't been able to find them since. They haunt me.

But I am determined.

The unicorn is out there.