What is Pouvre Chic?

What is Pauvre Chic:

Literally it translates into poor style, or poor ethos. But its so much more than that, pauvre chic is a design and decorating ethos that is geared to those who have more time than money, but don’t want to sacrifice comfort, taste, or quality due to lack of funds. It’s a way of being creative in how you find the pieces, how to make quality investments that rival those who spend much more money to get something similar.

The basic tenants of pauvre chic are find quality, do it yourself, passing it on, and patience

Find quality

In this day and age so much of what is created is made only for the here and now,not made to last, those items that are made to last often cost so much that its out of the realistic grasp of most people. So where does that leave you? You can get antiques, at times you can really find some great pieces such as accents, or even large pieces at good prices. Unfortunately the market for antiques, items 100 years or older, is so fully exploited that the casual buyer with little to no money, can not realistically get something nice often enough. But there are other ways to find quality furniture, accents, home furnishings, and more. One of the ways means I use is freecycle. Freecycle is a listserv that connects people who are looking for merchandise with those who are giving merchandise away for various reasons. Moving out hastily, re-decorating, change of life, or just getting stuff out of storage are all reasons that people give things away for free. Another source is Craigslist, on Craigslist they have a free web posting similar to freecycle, as well as items people are selling. For me I try to spend no more than 100 dollars on any furniture, and as little as possible for other decorative touches. Each person has to set their own limit, and those changes due to items, preference, how much work there needs to be done, and the urgency of the need. Yard sales, Thrift stores, Storage auctions, Consignment shops, friends, and family are all viable options of retrieving items that you would want.

How do you determine quality, well quality differs for each person. I look at how well the piece was made, the time period, and how old is a piece. For instance, if you are looking for a dresser and you find two that are free one is made out of mahogany dovetailed, all the drawers work, but is really scratched up, and the other one is a gently used Ikea particle board dresser that is no older than 2 years old depending on what you are need and are trying to achieve both are quality. The Ikea piece would work very well if you don’t want to put little to no time and energy in refinishing, whereas the mahogany piece may work better if you plan to keep it and utilize it. So quality is very subjective, and only you can make that determination.

Do It Yourself

After finding the item or items you are looking for now here comes your chance to be creative again. Look at what the piece is, and then imagine what you want it to be, and how it will fit into your own aesthic you are trying to create for room, home, patio, etc. Depending on your level of expertise you can do a little or a lot to change the items you received to the item you want. I consider myself a novice, I have some handyman skills, but not enough to call myself experienced, just yet. What I have done so far is use paints and stains to change the character of a room. I primed, and painted my bedroom by myself, the whole project cost no more than 150 dollars, including the paint supplies that I will continuously use, and the primer and paint cost about 70 dollars total. But if I would have hired someone to do that, I would have paid more just in the labor costs. Plus I learned a valuable skill, how to paint which helped me when stripped, sanded, and stained an Ethan Allen dresser, two night stands, and a queen size bed frame all to achieve a Bombay Mahogany color. This tied all pieces which I got for free, into a uniform set.

With the advent of various internet sites, you can merely type in what you want to do and directions on how to do it will come from various sources. I tend to go to DIYnetwork and HGTV.com they have videos which help show you how to do something, likewise youtube also has this advantage. Depending on the project, the manufacturer of products that help with that project also provide useful tips as well.

The more you do the more you can enhance your skill set and try different things.

Passing it on

The most egalitarian thing about pouvre chic is passing it on. You receive things for little to no cost, its only right that you do the same. We live in a society where we are thought that the accumulation of things means that you are better off. Anyone can tell you that this is not the case. Plus no matter how little you have very few of us don’t have something that we can give away that someone else may find useful, essential, or just plain want. The only way for you to have received what you wanted someone else had to part with what they had.

Patience

Nothing in life worth having comes easy. So trying to get quality pieces it will take time for them to become available under the conditions that you want, either free or within your low price range. Also the amount of work that needs to be done to rejuvenate them may take awhile as well. Then at times the project may not turn out exactly the way you want, or it may just bomb entirely. Be patient with yourself, and with the circumstances, in the end you will have one of a kind pieces that speak to who you are a person, what you feel is important, you would have gained new skills, and your wallet will thank you. So remember its a learning process, have patience with yourself.

Back to my Roots

For so many African-American’s the idea that you could trace your family history back akin to semi-fictional tale of Roots. But with the aide of modern technology it’s a reality that I am currently experiencing. My “journey” to find out who I am or where I come from started off rather innocuously with home décor. I know home décor, but I was looking for items that both fit into my pauvre chic but still spoke to me as an African-American.

Of course I was looking for paintings, drawings, and other artwork but I wanted something different. Something that was a real conversation starter, then it hit me. FREEDOM PAPERS, I wanted a copy of papers that set free, manumit, a persons and/or their progeny from slavery. But of course being the me that I am, I thought “wouldn’t it be great to be able to get a copy that had a surname that was I had in my pedigree, and possibly could be related to me. With the quick type of Google, I found it. I was literally stunned, I kept saying to myself, “No, no, no, it can’t be THIS easy”, but there it was, the surname of my mother’s maiden name starring back at me, with a list of fourteen slaves that were to be manumit from bondage at various ages. The records happened to be a school with Quaker ties. Before I realized it, I was on the phone with the person who was in charge of records.

What shocked him, was that no less than five minutes previously he was talking to the a colleague of his about those very records. In his mind he thought I must have talked to his colleague, and was stunned when he realized that no, I was complete stranger. Fate is funny I guess. In an hour, in my inbox, there were the pdf versions of the manumitted slaves names of fourteen persons: Robert, Eleanor, Mary, Lucy, Henry, William, John, Mark, Agnes, Polly, Joan, Richard, and Betsey. Of course after I got this and told my Mom. Understandably she was excited and happy charged with the idea that somehow maybe just maybe one of these persons was an ancestor of ours.

From there she told me a story that I remembered hearing that one of her ancestors on her father’s side as far back as we know was never a slave. The story went that he was on a ship bound to be a slave, but the captain of the ship could not pull into dock because slavery had been illegal, so instead of risking his life, the Captain burned the ship, and those on board, had to swim ashore, once reaching the shore. My ancestor got help from Quakers. I had heard this story before but I never really took it to heart, maybe it was the fact that I wanted to know if we were still related to one or more of the fourteen.

The Labor Day weekend that so many of the kids were out in Atlanta celebrating pride, I celebrated a different type of pride. After I told my new found interest of genealogy she turned over this pile of paper that she had been keeping just for this day. Information on various deceased relatives, contact information for those who she had been in contact with, and as much family research she did without having to pay (where do you think I got the pauvre chic genes from). That same day, after driving four ours to my hometown to spend that time with my mom, no more than an hour home, we decided on a spur of the moment trip to Accomac County, VA, to look for a town that had her ancestor’s surname.

Arriving in Accomac you could feel the history, the highway nothing more than a long seemingly forever stretch of asphalt, acres and acres of crops, a stillness in the acre, and often you could see abandoned farm buildings some larger than others where the vines had taken over. It was a Saturday and the whole county was still and quiet, eerily so. We finally arrive to the town that had our name, and only thing there was a street. A long street that was probably the only remnant of the place my great-grandfather grew up. While driving around we saw Black people, but we didn’t speak, my mother and I aren’t the type of people to just go up and talk to anyone.

But what that trip did was really spur me onto finding out as much information as possible about my family, the only way I knew how, by using the internet. Specifically ancestry.com. At first I was hesitant, I had used online communities, and subscriptions before, and all they ended up being was a hassle when you wanted to cancel. But I figured what the hell its 30 dollars a month and if I didn’t find anything then I would have just cancel. I started with knowing about only being able to go back three generations, after just a month I have been able to track my family back to 1835, and one person back to a specific owner, and plantation. It will only be a matter of time at least with that person that I can then trace who his mother and maybe father was due to the fact that most likely his parents were on the same plantation.

The only two issues that I have had so far is finding evidence to corroborate the story about the slave would be, and finding the last names of some of the ladies before they were married. Some of this information others in my family have, and they are just so damn trifling that I don’t know if they will ever give me the information that I need. But thanks to Ancestry.com I will be able to find it out eventually.

Since this has occurred knowing where my people came from Virginia and South Carolina, and learning more and more about them, has made me feel as if the United States is really mine. In fact, once I get my money right, I plan to buy an acre of land near or at the place in Virginia where my ancestor swam ashore.

Pauvre Chic

PAUVRE CHIC

Since moving into my first home, I’ve noticed that all the rooms look sparse, well just as sparse as my bank account. But I am determined to live within or below my income bracket, which means that I have to find a way to furnish and make my house a home with little money as possible. I’ve dubbed this operation Pauvre Chic, pauvre meaning poor in French. The first thing I did was take an inventory per room as to what I needed and wanted.

Master Bedroom:

Needs	Wants
Split Queen Size Boxspring (can’t get my boxspring up the stairs a common problem in bmore)	Better Mini-blinds
Dresser	Wooden Queen size bed frame
Mirror	Storage Chest/Ottoman
Night stand	Frame to hold this African Art piece
	Drapes
	Better Paint

Second Bedroom:

Needs	Wants
A twin or double bed	New Paint color
Same size boxspring	Mini-blinds
Same size frame
Night stand
Mirror
Linens for Bed

Small Bedroom/Office:

Needs	Wants
	New Paint
	Mini-Blinds

Living Room:

Needs	Wants
	Love seat
	Entertainment center or TV Armoire
	Artwork
	New paint color
	Accent Pillows
	Throws
	Accent furnishings
	Get futon cover for futon mattress
	Want new paint
	Mini-blinds

As you can see I have a lot of wants, and not a lot of “needs”. So adhering to my pauvre chic I have been on find and acquire mode trying to get the things I want. Some costs are unavoidable, paint, and mini-blinds. But everything else I’m getting for little to no money now. Below are some items I’ve gotten for free:

This queen size bed frame I got from freecycle a listserv that helps people give and get stuff for free from people who are trying to either acquire or get rid of stuff. The only issue is that when the lady was trying to disassemble the bed frame part of the wood that attached to the side railing came off too. All that means is that I’m going to have to screw a piece of wood there in order to use it, for my bedroom. This will be stained a “Bombay Mahogany” color.

Here is one of the two night stands I got again from freecycle, notice the stain at the bottom. The game plan here is to sand and stain the night stand and the rest of the bedroom furniture to make it look like “set”.

This is the Ethan Allen dresser and mirror combo I received, you guessed it from freecycle. Now even though this was free, I paid a guy 75 to help me transport and to use his truck to do so, it was worth every penny. This has been stained.

What’s not pictured is the queen sized futon frame that I got from freecycle, but I had to break down and pay for the mattress which cost me 169.

Also I’ve painted my bedroom bleached denim it’s the color on the walls behind the dresser and the queen sized frame photos.

The next “big purchase” for me is unfortunately going to be a queen size split boxspring. I really don’t want to buy one, but no one is giving them away and I don’t have any ideas as to how else to get support for my mattress.

Another thing I’m getting is African-American inspired or created art. Below are some examples I’m going to get. But besides art I want African Diaspora relics, one in particular are the manumission (freedom) papers of former slaves or copies thereof, which I just so happened to find!