You never know what’s in a drawer.
Nancy and Mike Clark had bought an old, iron medical cabinet. After scrubbing out the rusty, brown water and grinding open the nuts and bolts, they found a treasure — $2,000 in bills from 1936. The Clarks posted a picture online, reminding people to “clean their old pieces.”
Making new treasures from old finds is the focus of the Clarks’ shop, House Wren. Located in a metal barn on Highway 290, between Stonewall and Fredericksburg, they buy old and make new so that items can be loved again.
“I like that we bring life back into things otherwise thrown away. I don’t like wasting things,” Nancy said.
Before House Wren, Nancy owned a flower shop called Flora in Austin. She met Mike when he hung a flyer for his home remodeling business on the door of her mother’s home. He worked on that house, and then on Nancy’s, and along the way they became a couple. She had an eye for style, and he had an artisan’s ability to create.
For years they ran House Wren as a pop up, doing shows in Comfort, Round Top, and at Fredericksburg Trade Days. In November 2019 they found this location and opened a month later. A blue 1949 Chevy truck painted with their name marks the spot.
Nancy never thought she’d be in this line of work.
“If you’d told me when I was a kid that I’d have a shop like this, I’d say, ‘No way.’ My parents loved antiques — all that old, dark wood. As I got older I thought, ‘That’s not me.’ I always furnished my own house my own way. I didn’t go to Ikea. I went to the old El Paso Import Company,” she said. “I liked more unique things, and it evolved from there.”
House Wren is an ever-changing collection of vintage small-batch goods for the home, including candles private labeled by a Hill Country maker.
“Small batch to me means just us two,” Nancy said. “We’re not mass-producing anything. We have no employees. It’s whatever we can crank out.”
She says people’s decorating tastes are changing. She’s seen trends go from industrial and primitive to more streamlined, clean looks. What was once junk can become an accent piece to anchor a room.
“People are amazed you can make something beautiful out of old, junky things,” she said. “Old cupolas make good lights, old sinks make good fountains, rusty buckets make good planters.”
Earlier this year Mike built a greenhouse out of old doors and windows, and now Nancy grows plants to offer with those planters.
“Women love plants,” the former florist said.
But making planters from things others might call junk takes work. That’s Mike’s job.
“It’s a challenge,” he said. “Nothin’s flat, nothin’s square. Nobody sees the rotten wood. Everything’s always dirty or oily.”
His workshop is in the back of the store. He does take commissions and is currently working about six weeks out. Lately he’s been re-doing a lot of sinks.
“Almost as fast as I can make them, they sell,” Mike said.
For some of them he creates a tall backsplash, hand rusted.
“I’ve been messing with it forever to get the chemicals just right,” he said. “I did a tabletop. It was actually new, but I made it look not-new because they wanted it quickly, and it would’ve taken a while to find an old one.”
There’s no limit to what can become a treasure, in the Clarks’ hands.
“That mirror was an old barn vent. Those were old windows with broken glass — we put mirrors in them. We’re turning junk into things you’d have in your house,” Nancy said. “I love that we’re bringing new life to old pieces.”
House Wren is located at 12194 East Highway 290 and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday. Follow them on Instagram @housewrenatx to find hidden treasures.