3 Places Not to Display Antiques

Every wonder if you are placing your work of art or antique in the right place? I don’t mean to question your interior design sense or color choices, I just want you to consider if you are placing your antiques in a location where you won’t damage it and devalue it?

Everyone knows where to put a great work of art or antique–on the main wall of the living room, perched lovingly on a bedside table, or as a centerpiece in the dining room. Art and antiques like to live where you like to live. To protect, preserve, and properly display your antiques and heirlooms, here are three places where your antiques don’t belong and why.

1. Not in the Bathroom

Would you want to live full time in your bathroom? No and neither do your antiques. Bathrooms are a breeding ground for bacteria like mold and mildew that grows wildly no matter how much you clean. Once this yucky stuff gets attached to an antique object, there is no stopping it. Bathrooms host toxic chemicals from cleaning agents, perfumes, or hair spray which could damage your art and antiques. Even using the best framing tips with works of art are not safe in a bathroom environment. Condensation will get under the glass of that frame and warp, buckle or wrinkle your artwork devaluing it.

2. Not in the Foyer

That’s right, you wouldn’t think about it but the front or back foyer is a no-no spot. Foyers, no matter what climate you live in, experience severe changes in temperature and humidity from the simple act of opening and closing the door. Most foyers are flooded with sunlight which is damaging too. For the foyer, try a contemporary wreath instead of an antique.

3. Not in the Kitchen

Cannister set

If you burn food like I do when cooking, then you know why kitchens are not good places for art, antiques or valued kitchen collectibles. Even the big and small sizes of cookie jars that you have displayed high atop your cabinets will succumb to the heat and dirt of a kitchen in use. As you remove those cookbooks too, look how to tell which cookbooks are valuable. Heat will reveal itself in the form of tiny cracks all over your ceramics and valuable displayed plates a film of dirt that cannot be cleaned off, or harsh physical damage.

Antiques like areas of your home that don’t get much sunlight, have a constant and comfortable temperature year round, and aren’t too humid, too dry, or too damp. As you decorate, remember to place antiques in your home with care.

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