DISCOUNT DECORATING

Is the color of your furniture bad for your karma? If it is, Andreya Skupaka wants to talk. Skupakas in the business of putting the right people in touch with the right furniture for the right price. Decorators Anonymous, her East Dallas store at 1916 N. Haskell, caters to the needs of fickle shoppers who know what furniture they want but don’t want to mortgage the house to get it.

Billed as a resale shop for fine home furnishings and decorative accessories, the store is Dallas’ first consignment shop to offer what Skupaka terms “gently used” name-brand, custom, and antique furniture, along with new market samples in a retail showroom.

Shupaka lists a myriad of reasons why people consign furniture, including the one she heard about the color of furniture affecting one’s destiny in the next life. Usually, though, she says people are just redeco-rating and want to change their furniture. Discounts vary on every consignment piece. A new $300 designer lamp, for example, recently went for $130, and a $2,000 custom rug rolled away for $500. In addition to consignment goods, Skupaka carries new market samples at cost plus 20 percent.

Every day before the shop opens at 10 a.m., Skupaka is busy rearranging the furniture and accessories that occupy the 5,000 square feet of showroom. (She needed to expand her showroom space just three months into her nine-month-old venture because of customer demand.) New pieces and arrangements are added daily. Skupaka insists that all her consignment and market merchandise be current and sought-after items.

What’s hot: bleached pine country French furniture with all the accessories; almost anything Oriental or lacquered; “eclectic” furniture; and contemporary furniture (the overstuffed look) with the right fabrics (Haitian cotton, versatile chintzes, or silk fabrications).

What’s not: Mediterranean furniture (heavy, bulky, castle-looking-like pieces); white French Provincial (all little girls used to have this in their bedrooms); “antiqued” furniture; and Fifties furniture (it’s saleable but it’s only a trend).

Skupaka relishes her chances to pick up unusual items. Recently she found an Italian porcelain stove and a stained-glass flamingo that had been in families for a long time and had sentimental value.

And if you need help in choosing the right karma colors, she’s glad to recommend home decorators and furniture refin-ishers to lend you their cosmic taste buds.