LAKEVIEW — Walking into Joe Hartness' house is like walking into an antiques store — there is a story behind every antique he owns.
Hartness has been collecting antiques for more than half a decade. The art history major has always had a keen eye for superior pieces, he said.
The paintings of birds in his living room will take you back to 1790s Rome. The flower-themed glass in his hallway will take you to Venice and the wallpapers in his bedroom will take you to France in the 1700s.
Despite the antiques business dwindling — there are only about 1,000 people involved in Chicago — Hartness said that this provided an opportunity for people to collect extravagant pieces from the 18th Century at low costs.
Hartness and his friend Guy Franklin owned an antiques business close to a decade ago, and they sold items like knife boxes from the Greco Roman era, chandeliers and table lamps from Rome and Venice. They closed their business when the online auction market took over the world.
But this hasn't had an effect on Hartness. He continued collecting pieces for his house.
"We are constantly looking for new things. Old things go out and new things come in," he said.
Every room in his house is themed — birds, flowers, buildings and seasons. Hartness decided on the themes based on the shape and feel of each room.
He recently fulfilled a lifelong dream: He got a designer from Venice to design flower-patterns for his 18th-century Venetian glass. The glass ornaments his hallway.
The antique collector's favorite era is the 1790s and a lot of his pieces belong to that era. That was when Pompeii excavations took place and the popularity of Greco Roman furniture was at its all-time peak, Hartness said. Lighter-colored furniture painted with medallions of Roman gods was famous back then, he said.
"While Mahogany was a major feature in the first half of the 18th Century, lighter woods like satin wood became popular in the late 18th Century," Hartness said.
He also owns a tea set, ornamental pieces and furniture from the 1820s and 1830s, a period when the eagle became the symbol of American democracy. His living room has a table with eagle-clawed legs, a dinner set with eagle paintings and an ornamental eagle piece.
He also owned a tea box, which was a lockable box with trays holding different tea powders.
"There was a time when tea needed to be kept under lock and key because it was such an expensive thing," he said. This along with the cutlery box of knives, forks and spoons, is among his favorite items.
Apart from the antiques, Hartness has two cats — Lily and Carmella. He loves traveling and was recently in the West, visiting some national parks. He is all set to visit Rajastan, India this fall. He finds priceless antiques during his travel escapades and hopes to expand his collection.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
