“I love antiques,” Delia said. “So you can definitely say I’m doing my dream job.” The Boston native has built a business finding collectible and antique furniture for interior decorators and discerning homeowners. She has clients all over the country. “They tell me what they’re looking for. I go out and find it and ship it to them. Everyone’s happy.” Delia sources all kinds of antique furniture, including end tables, hall trees, glass fronted cabinets, armoires and more.
“One thing you learn fast in the antique business is that condition is everything,” Delia said. “If a piece is damaged, broken, or chipped, your buyer may not want it anymore. It’s important to work with a shipping company that knows how to protect your items completely. That means all the finials, all the drawer pulls and hardware, all the detailing and scrollwork – all of that stuff has to be properly secured and padded before it gets shipped or it will get wrecked.”
While contemporary furniture often travels inside oversize cardboard shipping cartons, Delia insists on custom built wooden shipping crates for her antiques. “When you’re shipping a one of a kind item, you really want that protection,” she explained. “It’s not like I can travel back in time to the eighteenth century and just pick up another table – this one here may be the only one left in the world by this maker.” She works with a Boston shipping company that has the capacity to build the wooden shipping crates in house. “This saves time, which lets me get the furniture to my clients that much faster – and believe me, when they know they’ve got a piece of furniture coming, they can get very impatient.”
Full insurance and tracking capabilities are also important if you’re shipping antique furniture. “I’ve never had any issue, but you never know what could happen,” Delia explained. “In the case of an unforeseen event I want to know I’m protected!”