Two Generations. One Love for Old Things.
Meet Emily & Elisabeth
Some families collect photographs. Others collect souvenirs. Ours? We’ve been collecting antiques, old furniture, interesting objects, and decorating ideas for generations.
We’re Emily and Elisabeth, the mother-daughter team behind Upstate Vintage Living.
But our love of old things didn’t begin with us.
It stretches back more than four generations—a family appreciation for pieces with history, homes with character, and the idea that something doesn’t have to be new to be beautiful. Over the years, that appreciation became something we shared: weekends spent antiquing, rooms rearranged more times than we can count, projects dreamed up over a cup of tea, and plenty of debates over whether we really needed one more thing from an antique shop.
Usually, one of us decides we do.
Today, Upstate Vintage Living is where all of those things come together.
It’s our love of country homes and old houses. It’s antique shops, flea markets, estate sales, and the thrill of finding something you weren’t looking for. It’s gardening, decorating, exploring Upstate New York and beyond, and learning as we go.
And at the center of it all is our belief that a beautiful home doesn’t need to be perfect—or expensive.
We believe in mixing old with new. In patterns that aren’t supposed to go together but somehow do. In inherited pieces sitting beside flea-market finds. In rooms that evolve rather than being decorated once and declared finished.
Because the homes we love most don’t look purchased.
They look collected.
And that’s really what Upstate Vintage Living is about: creating a home—and a life—that feels collected over time.
Welcome to our little corner of Upstate New York. We’re glad you’re here.
A Love of Old Things Runs in the Family
Our appreciation for antiques didn’t begin with Upstate Vintage Living. It has been passed through our family for generations.
For more than four generations, old furniture, family pieces, collections, and the stories attached to them have been part of our homes. We’ve grown up understanding that an old piece isn’t valuable simply because of its age. What makes it special is its craftsmanship, its history, the people who owned it before us, and the new story it becomes part of when you bring it home.
That perspective still shapes the way we decorate today.
We don’t believe everything needs to come from the same period, match perfectly, or follow a particular design rule. Some of our favorite rooms contain family heirlooms beside inexpensive flea-market finds, pieces we’ve refinished ourselves, things picked up while traveling, and objects we simply loved enough to bring home.
It’s a little eclectic. It’s always evolving. And that’s exactly how we like it.
Meet the Mother-Daughter Duo
Meet Emily
Emily grew up in Hoosick Falls, New York, where her family’s love of collecting antiques sparked a lifelong appreciation for vintage pieces, decorating, and making a home beautiful with what you have.
After earning her B.S. in Accounting from Russell Sage College, life took her around the Northeast—from Central Pennsylvania to Boston and eventually to Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, where she and her husband, Rick, purchased their first home.
In 2015, Emily returned to New York, bringing with her decades of experience transforming houses into warm, welcoming homes. Alongside more than 30 years in accounting, she has spent years helping friends and neighbors organize, decorate, rethink, and refresh their spaces.
That combination of creativity and practicality shapes the way Emily approaches a home. She doesn’t believe creating a beautiful room means starting over or buying everything new. Often, it’s about seeing what you already have differently—moving a piece of furniture, finding a new purpose for something old, introducing the right antique, or finally tackling the project you’ve been putting off.
She has an eye for seeing the potential in both a room and an overlooked antique and is rarely afraid of a good project—or a great find.
At Upstate Vintage Living, Emily brings decades of experience creating homes that are comfortable, personal, and meant to actually be lived in.
Emily loves: antique furniture • decorating projects • pieces with potential • making the most of what you already have • Mary Hadley pottery • antique bottles
Meet Elisabeth
Elisabeth was raised in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom before moving to New York, where she earned a B.S. in Digital Forensics, an MBA, and a Ph.D. in Information Science from the University at Albany.
Professionally, her path took her into cybersecurity. Today, she works in cyber risk and teaches cybersecurity as an adjunct professor at the University at Albany.
She’s also an author, bringing her love of place, history, community, and storytelling into atmospheric thrillers—including her first novel, The Things We Bury, set in the Northeast Kingdom where she grew up.
But alongside the degrees, cybersecurity, teaching, and writing has always been another side of Elisabeth: the one that would happily spend an afternoon wandering an antique store, rearrange a room because something doesn’t feel quite right, disappear into the garden, or become fascinated by the history of an old house.
She inherited her mother’s love of the antique hunt and the belief that some of the most interesting things aren’t found in big-box stores. For Elisabeth, the story behind a piece can be just as interesting as the piece itself.
Whether she’s searching for the perfect find for the booth, styling a room, working on an old house, exploring somewhere new, or imagining what an overlooked piece could become, she loves the history, character, and sense of discovery that vintage pieces bring to a home.
And she firmly believes a house should never feel completely finished.
Elisabeth loves: historic homes • gardens • anything with a story • blue & white • Staffordshire • old artwork • books
We Don’t Fit Neatly Into a Box. Neither Should a Home.
On paper, an accountant and a cybersecurity professional might not be the people you’d expect to find spending their weekends digging through antique shops, rearranging furniture, working in the garden, or debating whether there’s room in the car for one more piece.
But that’s part of the story behind Upstate Vintage Living.
Our professional lives have taken us in very different directions. Emily brings more than three decades of accounting experience and a practical eye for making the most of what you have. Elisabeth brings a background in research, teaching, writing, and storytelling.
And then there’s everything we’ve learned simply by doing—buying homes, working on old houses, decorating and redecorating rooms, collecting antiques, gardening, organizing spaces, selling vintage, making mistakes, changing our minds, and trying again.
Those different experiences shape the way we approach Upstate Vintage Living.
We research. We appreciate history and craftsmanship. We think about budgets. We care about how a space functions just as much as how it looks. And we’re much more interested in helping a home develop its own personality than following a list of decorating rules.
Because we don’t believe you need to fit neatly into one box.
And neither should your home.
Same Family. Different Eyes.
Being a mother-daughter team doesn’t mean we always agree.
We can walk into the same antique shop and immediately head in opposite directions. One of us will see potential in something the other wouldn’t look at twice. We’ve debated furniture placement, paint colors, garden plans, what belongs in the booth—and, of course, whether we have room for whatever antique one of us has just discovered.
But that’s part of the fun.
Our homes have never been about following one person’s decorating rules. They’re about layering different generations, tastes, stories, and ideas until somehow it all works.
As we’ve learned along the way:
If you like it, it will all go together.
A Few Things You’ll Learn About Us
OLD HOUSES
We will choose character over perfection every time.
THE HUNT
Half the fun of antiques is never knowing what you’re going to find.
GARDENS
The outside of a home deserves just as much personality as the inside.
COLLECTIONS
Blue-and-white, Staffordshire, artwork, books, odd little objects—we’re firmly on team “more is more.”
DECORATING ON A DIME
A beautiful home doesn’t require an unlimited decorating budget.
UPSTATE ADVENTURES
Give us a country road, an antique shop, a historic house, a garden, and somewhere good to eat, and we’re happy.
Our Home Base
Two Old Houses. Five Houses Apart.
Apparently, one historic house in the family wasn’t enough.
Today, Upstate Vintage Living is rooted in two old houses along the Hudson River—one dating to 1839, the other to the 1890s, and just five houses separating them.
Different generations, different styles, and different personalities, but a shared appreciation for history, antiques, gardens, and creating homes that feel collected rather than purchased.
Between the two houses, there’s always a room being rearranged, a garden being planned, an antique finding a new home, or a project that somehow becomes a family affair.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
The River House – 1839
The River House has been the heart of Upstate Vintage Living since our family made it home in 2015.
Built in 1839 along the Hudson River, it’s a house filled with history, character, family memories, and more projects than we could possibly count.
Over the years, it’s been a renovation project, a gathering place, a decorating experiment, and an ever-changing backdrop for our love of antiques and country living.
Inside, family heirlooms mingle with flea-market finds, collections continue to grow, and rooms are rearranged whenever inspiration strikes. Outside, the gardens are always evolving, with new ideas taking shape each season.
Like most old houses, it’s never truly finished.
And that’s part of what we love about it.
We’re sharing the renovations, decorating projects, gardens, seasonal traditions, entertaining, and everyday realities of living in a nearly 200-year-old home.
Elisabeth’s House – 1890s
Two years ago, another old house joined the family story.
Just five houses down from the River House, Elisabeth found her own piece of history: an 1890s home with original character, stone terraces, gardens, and plenty of potential.
And, naturally, plenty of projects.
While the River House reflects years of family memories and collections, Elisabeth’s home is developing a personality all its own. It’s a place where English country inspiration meets antiques, blue-and-white china, Staffordshire dogs, old artwork, books, layered patterns, and pieces gathered over time.
Some rooms are coming together. Others are still being imagined. And there’s always something to paint, plant, rearrange, repair, or rethink.
Being five houses apart has its advantages, too.
Furniture travels between homes. Antiques get reconsidered. Decorating opinions are freely exchanged. And when one of us discovers something we absolutely cannot leave behind, there’s always the possibility it might fit better five houses down.
We’re sharing the process of making this old house a home—not just the finished rooms, but the decisions, projects, discoveries, and changes along the way.
Come Along With Us
Upstate Vintage Living has grown into more than a home or an antique booth.
It’s where we share the things we genuinely love: country homes, old things, beautiful gardens, affordable decorating, small businesses, Upstate places, and the stories we discover along the way.
Some days we’re tackling a project at the River House. Some days we’re rearranging the antique booth. And some days we’re simply getting in the car with coffee and seeing where the road takes us.
We’d love to have you along for the ride.
