Old-Style Furniture is New Again

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Marrying their love of art and the home, husband and wife duo Matt Rink and Sarah Bader opened New Antiquity, a small-batch furniture design business based in Bethel.

Offering rustic, handcrafted pieces, the one-year-old business specializes in furniture as well as custom built-ins and renovation work.

Rink, 29, and Bader, 27, met in 2005 while taking art classes at Alfred University.

"We got out of school at a very strange time for the arts," Rink said. "Furniture is the perfect middle ground for us. It's very artful yet very functional."

After graduation, Rink worked on residential projects in lower Fairfield County with his father, a master carpenter with more than 35 years of experience, before the economy crumbled.

He then turned to public art projects funded through federal grants, like the 10-year 9/11 memorial at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, while Bader worked in the visual department at Anthropologie of Westport.

After becoming engaged, the couple decided to design and craft furniture for their wedding out of reclaimed pallet wood. Later deciding to put the tables up for sale on Etsy.com post-wedding, Bader and Rink saw that they could turn their love of furniture design into a profitable business.

Getting wood from area barns damaged by storms in recent years, the couple handcrafts one-of-a-kind furniture, installations, outdoor structures and light fixtures.

"A lot of character has been lost in machine-produced furniture," Bader said. "People are trying to get more soul and human connection back into their home." They couple credits the resurgence of the do-it-yourself movement and the excitement people feel when they can go out and find something and repurpose it themselves to the success of their own business.

"Our generation grew up in a time of mass-production and it's as if they are making their own movement to get away from that," Rink said. "Now, you can reach out to someone locally and get something made for your living room or dining room for the same price that you would pay for something new." Rink said about a third of their business still remains on its Etsy.com site while the rest includes custom work for businesses, cities and residences stretching from Fairfield County to New York City.

Their local projects include an art installation made of maple tree branches on the wall of Baro restaurant in Fairfield; a large treehouse play structure in Southport Park; and a coffee table, floating bar and saloon-style doors at B Hive, a trendy office space in Bridgeport.

Utilizing older techniques and styles like saw-tooth shelving and wooden drawer sliders, Rink said they named their business New Antiquity as a nod to the methods used in crafting their pieces.

"Years ago there was a different level of craftsmanship. People spent time on things. They didn't want to build something, have you buy it and have it break a few years later so you need to buy a new one," he said.

New Antiquity's production time on tables is about four to six weeks.

"It's rewarding to know people can have a meal on our tables," Rink said. "It's about bringing people together, talking and exchanging ideas."

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