Cabin fever

The place is chock-full of artifact after rustic artifact purchased over the years from wilderness resort areas like the Adirondacks and the lake regions of New England. Briggs’s collection includes everything from vintage suitcases, tree-trunk stools, and dressers that look as though they were constructed out of Lincoln Logs to dozens of squirrels in all sorts of incarnations. Vintage signs point to places like “Uncle Frog’s Cabin,” painted oars hang alongside Native American scenes, and red and black plaid lumberjack coats hang on pegs next to tiny wool mittens.

While Briggs is attracted to the intrinsic beauty of his artifacts, like the octagonal sign from a fish-and-game department with a fine old oil painting at its center, it’s the stories these objects tell that most intrigue him. He points to a football that reads “1952 Lincoln League Champs” and wonders aloud, “You know that the football was in the school trophy case, yet it ended up on eBay. Why?”

Briggs, who started collecting at age 7 -- he paid a quarter for a bamboo plant stand at an auction -- is still going strong. He makes acquisitions pretty much every day, even if it’s just a $1 pair of dice. In a small place, this can be a problem. “I’m out of room,” he says, “so I have a new rule. If I buy something new, two things have to leave.”

The rule is a good idea, but Briggs admits he rarely follows it. Instead, he moves things around. Sometimes he relocates an item to his booth at the Rhode Island Antiques Mall in Pawtucket. Other times, he’ll give something to his mom, who owns an antiques shop in Lunenburg. If they still can’t move an item, it gets donated to her church. He says with a smile, “Boy, do they have great rummage sales.”

Marni Elyse Katz blogs at stylecarrot.com. Send comments to designing@globe.com.

See a buying guide of Gary Briggs’s favorite sources for Adirondack-style decor online at Boston.com/magazine.