Mike and Tess Price love it when guests enter their Orchard District ranch home and say, “That’s so shabby.”

In fact, the shabbier, the better. The couple make a living with their shabby chic furniture business, Beach House. Their east Bend home is the showroom, and inventory and furnishings come and go, which allows for frequent redecorating.

“We can let go of anything, and even though we may really love a piece that we’ve rehabbed, we know that something else, probably even better, will come along,” said Mike Price, a former home contractor, who now works with his wife full time at Beach House. “It’s about moving on.”

Entering through French doors into the Prices’ living room takes on an almost dreamy quality, as the soft, creamy white interior with silver accents provides an elegant, vintage look that’s not only inviting, but also comfortable — the hallmark of shabby chic decor.

Mini white Christmas lights strategically hung for effect stay up year-round, as do the vintage silver Christmas bird ornaments hanging off willow branches. Soft lights sparkle off the silver accents.

Soft white cotton fabric drapes gracefully over the sofas, making visitors want to curl up with a good book and a hot cup of tea.

With a shabby chic look, fabrics tend to be cotton and linen, inspired by old French linens. Newer fabrics are often bleached, faded or tea stained to achieve the relaxed, vintage look.

The living room also includes an elegant iron chandelier with clear crystals reflecting the soft white light. Almost every room in their home has a unique, vintage chandelier hanging from the ceiling, which is often a trademark of a shabby chic room.

Tess Price, who started Beach House, is proud of their four-bedroom, two-bath house. Most of the furnishings and accents in her home are secondhand, and have come from thrift shops, salvage stores, Habitat for Humanity resale stores, antique junk shops or any number of local garage sales.

“We were green and recycling before it became fashionable,” says Tess with a laugh. “When you don’t have a lot of money to start with, you do green — that’s all we know. Friends and family would say, ‘you got that where?’ They love what we can do with used furnishings.”

Tess says she loves the shabby chic look because she has three children, two of them teenagers. The look is never stuffy or fussy, so it tends to be easy and family friendly, and of course, the price is right.

“We’ve been remodeling our ranch house since we bought it in the 1990s. It’s always a work in progress,” said Mike Price. “But I’d have to say at least 90 percent of what we’ve used has been re-used materials, and of course we’ve saved tens of thousands of dollars over the years.”

Ideas and freebies

Tess says a black distressed wooden plate and cup rack, which was placed against a window, was an idea she found in a magazine. The effect lets natural light stream through the plates, adding additional interest in the small but efficient kitchen.

“We tore down an entire wall in this kitchen, so we could have an open area that flows into the living room,” explained Tess, leaning against a kitchen island that Mike made from reclaimed wood. “The Jenn-Air stainless steel stove was something Mike got for free when he was working on a home he was remodeling, and the owners didn’t want it anymore. These slate tiles on the floor were also extra from a job site.”

When they remodeled their kitchen, they also added two additional windows, one they bought from The Home Depot, and the other one, which is identical, they found at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, which sells discount and reused building materials. They added another set of French doors, also found at the Habitat for Humanity store, to their dining room, which leads out to their backyard.

Tess considers herself a “treasure hunter,” and confesses she shops and hunts for items almost every day.

“Sometimes I’ll come back with something really, really ugly, and Mike shakes his head, but underneath the ugliness is something really great,” says an enthusiastic Tess. “We’ve had some really bad pieces that have turned out into something totally different, something useful and really beautiful.”

The couple has been married for 18 years, and their working styles complement each other in a business that requires a lot of give and take.

“She really is an artist. She knows how to use colors,” explains Mike. “I may have the ability to make something, but she’s the one with the vision.”

Mike points to the dining room wall as proof of Tess’ ability to use colors. The accent wall is a beautiful robin blue, marbled with muted browns and gold.

“That wall actually has five different colors on it,” explained Tess. “You use sheetrock mud for texture. It gives it a plaster look from the olden days. I used a rag, a brush, water and five different paints. The water will dilute the paints, and it changes the color.”

Old and new

Mixing old with new is something else that sets Tess’ decorating apart from the ordinary shabby chic. Underneath her distressed white dining room table is a faux zebra rug she received from a friend.

On the dining room buffet, which Mike made, Tess has placed a horse statue, which she says is the one thing in her home that is not for sale. Customers have asked, but Tess says she loves the horse, and it’s staying.

Making something beautiful, new and usable out of old pieces of furniture and decor items is what excites the Prices about pieces they have in their home.

“Mike took this old tin panel from the early 1900s and incorporated it into this piece of furniture,” said Tess, pointing to a dresser in her bedroom. “He’s also taken glass doors from the 1920s and incorporated (them) into different furnishings. It’s so much fun to see what something will become.”

The Prices have experimented on their home much like they have with the furniture they remake. The couple took the original family room in the back of this 1950s ranch home, and turned it into their master bedroom and master bathroom.

The golden-hued master bedroom is a mix of rustic with a touch of elegant shabby chic.

“I think what people should remember is that you don’t want too much rustic. If everything is rustic, it will be too dark — you want some light touches,” advised Tess.

While a lot of shabby chic furnishings are painted a muted white, Tess has used some extreme colors for some furnishings, including a distressed lime green dresser and a turquoise lowboy chest. She also says they’re incorporating more natural wood into their pieces. The couple say that, depending on the furniture, they are always experimenting and evolving new ideas.

And if remodeling their 1,700-square-foot home wasn’t enough, Mike took it upon himself to build a quaint, storybook-looking cabin in their backyard, which warehouses more furnishings from their company.

Just outside of the one-bedroom cabin, Mike has built a small waterfall from the natural lava rock outcroppings he found on the property. Already, spring greenery is sprouting from between the rocks.

“I actually got those plants from a neighbor who was redoing his landscaping, and he asked if I wanted some plants,” recalled Mike. “So I replanted those plants he was throwing out, and now they’re doing really well.”

Whether it’s a plant, a piece of furniture or a decoration, the Prices will breathe new life into it.