Just like old times

Jem

470 Shawmut Ave., Boston. 617-391-0490, www.jemhome.com

Some of the curios in Jane Miller’s new South End store are flecked with rust, as if they’d lived outside for years, unremembered and unloved, before being dusted off and reconsidered. A green metal water bubbler, its glass jug miraculously intact, leans against a brick wall, like a prop from “The Andy Griffith Show.’’ Terrier sculptures (are they doorstops? bookends?) gather nearby. An industrial flange, made into a mirror, hangs across the room.

To the hurried observer, the assortment at Jem might look like random garage-sale booty, but closer inspection reveals each piece to be carefully, thoughtfully curated. A former production director for Boston event guru Bryan Rafanelli, Miller is captivated by the antique, the odd, and the just plain old. It’s an aesthetic whose time has come. These days, aggressively modern spaces feel passe - headachey reminders of easy credit and once-fat 401(k)s. Meanwhile, found items and reclaimed pieces feel just right: responsible, eco-conscious, chastened.

That said, Miller, who’s also an interior designer, doesn’t limit her boutique offerings to found and refurbished objets. She carries new pieces, too, artisanal works that dovetail beautifully with the store’s quirky one-offs. A gorgeous poplar butcher block table, designed by Miller herself, sits front and center in the store. Handmade ceramic bowls by Burlington, Vt., artist Susan Raber Bray pepper the tabletops. Brightly colored felted folding chairs are at once familiar and strangely otherworldly.

So, is Miller nervous about launching her boutique now, when shoppers remain shell-shocked by rocky economic news? Not really.

“It’s counterintuitive,’’ said Miller, 36. “It’s really a good time to start a business. My thinking is, this is the worst of times - it can only get better. So if I can build something now, that would be amazing.’’

Poor Little Rich Girl

166 Newbury St., Boston (617-425-4874), 255 Elm St., Somerville (617-684-0157), www.shoppoorlittlerichgirl.com

When assembling the second location of her popular Davis Square consignment shop, Poor Little Rich Girl owner Meredith Byam pulled from flea markets, Etsy, antique shops, and salvage yards to create a boutique space that both suited her aesthetic and saved some money, too. “Store fixtures are so expensive and so ugly, unless you get involved with custom stuff, which I just couldn’t afford,’’ says Byam, who opened the Newbury Street outpost in December and decorated it herself. “A little Lucite table was going to run me $1,200. Forget it, I said. I’ll make a table out of a pile of suitcases.’’ The result is an artful merchandising of vintage dressers, antique mannequins, old picture frames, and other relics both found and saved. Her dad’s army trunk has new life as a holder of scarves and shoes; a lazy Susan from the 1960s displays hats and gloves; a chair that once belonged to Byam’s grandmother is a place for guests to sit (and though she is often asked, Nana’s chair is not for sale). For a third location she’ll open next month just outside Inman Square, Byam recently picked up some vintage tin advertisements to hang on the walls as jewelry displays, and an old wooden ladder at New England Salvage to showcase accessories. Says Byam, “I’ll see things at yard sales and antique shops and say, I could put a hat on that!’’

il Casale

50 Leonard St., Belmont. 617-209-4942, www.ilcasalebelmont.com

Three years ago, when de Magistris began considering the space that would become il Casale, he envisioned a modern Italian trattoria. Modern was what worked; modern made money. But by the time construction on il Casale began earlier this year, modern no longer felt right. De Magistris opted instead for a more casual feel. “Everything but the chairs’’ was handcrafted by Vermont woodworker Jeffrey Sass out of wood reclaimed from old barns and plank houses throughout New England: hemlock for the 35 tabletops, a mix of pine, maple, and other wood for paneling behind the bar and around the open kitchen. De Magistris kept the firehouse’s original ceiling beams and exposed brick walls. It wasn’t about money; going contemporary, he says, would have been cheaper. The result is a warm, inviting space that feels like the restaurant it has become: a neighborhood favorite.

Coppa

253 Shawmut Ave., Boston. 617-426-7866

Opening next month

For the sixth restaurant in Ken Oringer’s mini-empire, the chef-restaurateur and partner Jamie Bissonnette worked with local designer April Soderstrom to create a space that’s decidedly unflashy. At Coppa, an Italian-style neighborhood wine bar set to open next month, the bar and tables are made from reclaimed lumber, some of which are scraps rescued from the space’s original baseboard moldings. Others are leftovers from a recent renovation of the South End apartment Oringer shares with his wife, Celine. The couple sourced most of the barware and serving pieces - including an antique kitchen slicer - from Brimfield, as well as flea markets in New York and Paris. Boxes that deliver produce to any of Oringer’s restaurants will be reused as decoration -reflecting chef Bissonnette’s philosophy of using local ingredients whenever possible. “It’s not mix and match,’’ says Oringer. “For us, the look and mood we’re going for is intentional. It just felt right for now.’’

Trina’s Starlite Lounge

3 Beacon St., Somerville. 617-576-0006, www.trinastarlitelounge.com Opening this month

Opening at the end of this month in Inman Square, Trina’s Starlite Lounge came together with the help of (lots of) friends. “People just kept bringing us stuff,’’ co-owner Trina Sturm says of the myriad vintage goods that are stuffed, for the time being, into the restaurant’s basement. Luckily, Sturm and her two partners - her husband, Beau, and Josh Childs, a co-owner of Silvertone Bar & Grill - have what Sturm describes as aesthetic synergy. The bar will be backed with vintage cocktail shakers, thermoses, and glasses gathered from friends, Etsy, eBay, and flea markets, and the walls lined with framed record covers that belonged to Beau (“Fats Domino!’’ Sturm points out with glee. “I love that he owned this.’’) Sturm decoupaged the bathroom walls with advertisements pulled from stacks of Life magazines that Childs happened to have at home. A Maytag refrigerator (a gift from a friend’s grandfather) that Sturm guesses is from the ’50s will house condiments; above it is a collection of vintage drink trays: Monarch Beer, Schaefer, Miller High Life. The partners are decorating DIY, so much of the culling of décor was budget-minded, but with a menu that includes such retro classics as pigs-in-blankets, meat loaf, and cheese balls, the flashback décor is entirely fitting.

Drink

348 Congress St., Boston. 617-695-1806, www.drinkfortpoint.com

Housed in a former 19th-century wool warehouse, Barbara Lynch’s Fort Point Channel bar, Drink, makes adaptive use of its space, with metal tables constructed around inconveniently-placed structural beams. “What might have been something of an eyesore became an intentional part of the design,’’ says bar manager John Gertsen, who worked with Lynch and local designers Jeffrey and Cheryl Katz of OK Design Co. to create an “industrial, but elegant’’ space that complemented the building structure. From flea markets, eBay, and Etsy, Gertsen assembled a collection of vintage barware, towels, and cocktail books, all of which are used or displayed behind the bar. Ice is kept in a 1920s-era icebox. Vintage ice tongs, ice picks, and ice shavers provide both aesthetic and practical value. (Some ice shapes are “impossible to get with newer tools,’’ says Gertsen, a man who takes his ice very seriously.) And while Drink’s glassware, made up almost entirely of vintage finds, was expensive, the investment has ultimately proven cost-effective. “ ‘Precious’ glassware adds a certain amount of care in handling, so we have a low breakage rate,’’ he says. “Plus, my bartenders really like it, so they’re extra careful.’’