Joey MacArthur grits his teeth and lifts nearly 100 pounds of solid, rusty metal from atop a stack of tables.
Once, perhaps a century ago, this ochre-tinged iron hay bale pulley, shuttled huge bales of hay inside a Northwest barn.
Today, it’s one of the prides of the collection at the Wild Hare Vintage and Antiques in Snoqualmie, where Joey and his partner Tami Smith buy and sell finds. Like many treasures, though, it’s here today, and gone tomorrow. That’s by design, says Tami.
“If somebody sees the same things all the time, that’s a museum,” she said. “Our goal is to move stuff as quickly as possible. ‘Cause in order to keep the passion alive, we have to go out and get new stuff all the time.”
The couple travels every month for new finds, traversing the Northwest. People also bring them antiques to sell, and sometimes, just to figure out what something is.
Artists come here to find interesting things that they can make art with. Tami and Joey feature local artists, like Stephanie Lady Stormblood, a fantasy sculptor.
In one corner is an old ball cage from the 1930s. Nearby, there’s a vintage street sign, actually a manufacturer’s demo piece.
“And then we’ll turn around and do something like this,” says Joey, pointing out a mid-1960s lamp. “The right person will walk in and say, ‘That’s the most beautiful lamp I’ve ever seen.”
They try to make it kid-friendly, too. Lego creations and Pokémon items are scattered among the old silver and ceramics.
“This is not your grandma’s kitchen,” says Tami. “We’re not china cabinets and teacups. We are eclectic.”
Tami explains the appeal—it’s for people who want to have a unique decor. Finds create a space that defines who people are.
Joey and Tami say they spend a lot of time just talking to customers, “and having a lot of fun with them,” adds Joey. “They say, ‘I’ve never laughed so much in my life. We didn’t think this would be so much fun.’”
“We have personalities,” he adds. “There’s a few stores where, you go in there, and it seems like death. We try and engage, talk to people, make them laugh, smile, feel comfortable. And when they leave, we tell them how much we appreciate that they’ve come here.”
The business name comes from Tami’s love of rabbits. A former stay-at-home mom, a few years ago, she was getting into interior design, and noticed that “oftentimes, people get a ‘wild hare’ to redo their house.” Later, when she needed a name as antique picker, ‘Wild Hare’ leapt up.
Co-owners and partners, Joey and Tami opened Wild Hare last April, inside a former feed store at Meadowbrook. A former executive producer for video games, notably the Lego Star Wars series, Joey came to this trade through Tami.
“Tami’s my favorite person in the whole world,” he said. “She helped me find what my passion really was. At this stage in my life, I want to do something for the rest of my life.” He’s found it in antiques.
This pair is passionate about their finds. Tami and Joey relate how they once had to dive into a grimy crawl space in search of a vintage icebox, maybe 100 years old. Once they found it, they had to get it out. But the hatch was too small.
“We convinced the estate sale company to let us take the tools in the shed, and cut a hole big enough,” said Joey. “We spent an hour chopping under the house to take the whole thing out.”
Letters—large ones from off signboards or marquees—are extremely popular. Customers will buy their initials, hang them on the front door or put them in their kids’ rooms.
Tami relates how one customer arrived, soon to celebrate her and her husband’s 32nd wedding anniversary. The husband spent a lot of time in his barn workshop, so she bought a large ‘X’ and ‘O’ to hang inside.
“It was a hug and a kiss,” Tami said. “It was not expensive—$20 and her anniversary was done. Super meaningful!
“Oftentimes with antiques, people are too attached to their stuff, so the price is too high,” said Tami. Her philosphy is different. “I think people appreciate unique items at reasonable prices. That’s what we try to do.”
She promotes a selection of chalk-based paints, useful for putting a new coat of paint on old furnishings for a bright new life.
“Every time we make something, it sells,” says Joey.
The best part of Snoqualmie is the community, says Tami. Locals seem to be taken with the shop—enough to vote Wild Hare Vintage number one out of 102 other shops in Evening Magazine’s Best of Western Washington poll.
“For being a small place, we are beating some of the top stores in Seattle,” says Joey.
“I think it’s loyalty,” says Tami. They both want to keep the votes coming.
“It would be a great thing to put Snoqualmie on the map,” says Joey, who created a hashtag for the contest, #SnoqualmiePride.
Wild Hare Vintage is located at 9055 Railroad Ave. S.E., Snoqualmie, across from SnoValley Credit Union. Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday through Thursday. Call the store at 425-526-5012, or visit www.wildharevintage.com.
Vote for the Evening Magazine poll at http://best.king5.com/best/antiques/shopping/western-washington.
Joey MacArthur hefts a 100-year-old hay bail pulley. Reproductions of such pulleys are hot, say MacArthur and Smith. They’ve got an original. “There’s a lot of people who just love rusted metal, myself being one,” says co-owner and partner Tami Smith.
Old, colorful letters are popular at Wild Hare. These two used to spell out sign phrases at a former RV park in Oregon.
Tami Smith holds a pumpkin, studded with brads, fall decor at Wild Hare, in front of the rabbit mural outside the building.
Smith promotes a selection of chalk-based paints, above, which she and partner Joey MacArthur use to freshen up their finds, such as these vintage candlesticks, below.
