8 vendors from shuttered Virginia Street Antique Mall help recreate business in Carson

CARSON CITY, Nev. — Reno's long-lived and much loved Virginia Street Antique Mall closed six months ago and part of it has been reincarnated in Carson City.

Redeemed Home Furnishings and Decor on Carson Street is now home to 26 vendors including a handful from the shuttered Reno mall.

The others come from all over Northern Nevada — Minden, Gardnerville, Lake Tahoe, Virginia City, Smith Valley — and sell everything from baby grand pianos to collectible gas pumps to vinyl records.

“Almost half the store is not antiques, it's more collectibles,” and even some new items like handmade pottery sold by Comstock Pottery, said George Alm, owner.

Alm bought the store about five years ago and stocked it with secondhand furniture.

“We went from good quality used furniture into antiques and more,” said Alm.

He started bringing in other vendors, and then the well-known Reno antique mall lost its lease.

“Ron Hubbard was the first one with the Reno mall to knock on my door and ask if I'd open it up,” said Alm. “He spearheaded it.”

Now, the store is home to eight of the Reno mall tenants, including a booth operated by Margaret Youell, mother of the Reno mall's owner, Lisa Youell Jeanney.

Alm said soon after the vendors started moving in he hosted a potluck at the store for everyone to meet each other.

“But everybody already knew each other,” he said.

Alm has relegated his offerings — which include furniture, antique beer steins and a Seeburg jukebox converted into a liquor cabinet — to 2,000 square feet in the back of the 8,000 square-foot store.

“I used to have to fill it all up and now they're filling it up,” said Alm.

There's a 1950s era Hamilton piano, 1960s era light fixture suitable for a James Bond movie set, kitschy salt-and-pepper shaker sets, glass collectibles, hundreds of vinyl records, and much more.

There are also craftspeople, including an upholster, Randy Gray, who also sells furniture he's redone, and Clock John who repairs clocks on Saturdays and his wife who restores oil paintings, including an unusual 9-by-6 foot painting Alm found at a Lake Tahoe estate sale.

That is Alm's other businesses — auctioneering and estate sales.

“My dream was to have a store with an auction house,” said Alm, but he's pleased with the way it has turned out.

Redeemed Home Furnishings and Decor is open every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Sunday when it closes at 4 p.m. The store is located at 3727 N. Carson St. and can be contacted by phone at 775-461-3142 or email at redeemedhomefurnishings@yahoo.com.