Best Place to Buy One-of-a-kind Furniture

Jane may love cheap furniture, but she loves her daughter, Jackie, more. Otherwise she would never have financially backed Jackie's dream-that-would-probably-only-last-a-summer six years ago. After four years of book-cracking, Jackie graduated from college with a degree in social work -- and discovered that she'd rather be dealing with furniture than clients. Jackie takes well-made (real wood, not pressed wood; solid wood, not wood veneer) furniture with a past and brings it into the present by giving it a new look: tropical, seaside, cottage, Mediterranean. You never know what you'll find here: an old oak teacher's desk with a pull-out platform perfect for a computer that Jackie has given a distressed look in soft white; a two-drawer trunk, perfect at the foot of one's bed, that Jackie has hand-painted with black hearts and the words to a 13th-century love poem that begins, "In your light, I learn to love…"; a corner cabinet done in MacKenzie-Childs- inspired colors and funk. And those are just three reasons to love Jane's -- and Jackie's -- cheap furniture.